Carlisle's Angels
by Miss Baby
Summary: Once upon a time there were three very different girls, who grew up to be very different women. They are brilliant. They are beautiful and they work for me. My name is Carlisle. AU/AH/OOC/Canon pairings. Rated M for a reason.
1. Prologue

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**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

**Prologue. (_Carlisle Cullen)._**

Once upon a time, there were three very different little girls... who grew up to be three very different women. They grew up and lived their lives like so many others around them.

That is.....until calamity struck and these three different women found out how hard life can be.

Rose.

The lioness.

As stunning on the outside as she is tough and fierce on the inside.

Still healing after a brutal attack that left her almost dead and without a home.

Alice.

The visionary.

Dedicated to keep the angels safe and looking good.

Abandoned by her parents and left at the mercy of the worst of men.

And Bella.

The thinker.

My newest angel.

Tough and silent on the outside, loving and intelligent on the inside.

Thrown out of the police academy after her father was implicated in a fraud case that killed two cops.

Hell bent to prove to the world that swans are as innocent as angels.

All three of them went through hell to emerge on the other side, broken, damaged and eager for revenge.

But I took them away from that and taught them to channel their pain and anger towards the greater good.

These three women may be different and they have very different stories to tell, but they have three things in common:

They're brilliant,

They're beautiful

And they work for me.

My name is Carlisle.

_**So yeah, I know this is horribly short even for a prologue bit I couldn't imagine opening my newest story any other way. I used most parts of the into to the Charlie's Angels movie for this prologue, adding bits and pieces that have something to do with the story. In spite of the fact that I will be using some scenes from the Charlie's Angels movies and/or other action/spy movies this is the only chapter where it will be this obvious. **_

_**I hope to have the first proper chapter up within the next week. For now please review and let me know what you think.**_


	2. Say hello to the angels

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****Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**_This chapter turned out more gloomy than I expected and intended it to be. I guess when angry-as-hell-Bella takes over there's no escaping the gloom. The next chapter will be written in Emmett's POV and will be more upbeat, light and fluffy, as will most of the story. It also turns out Bella has rather a filthy mouth on her. _

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_Cranky Bella will not be a regular feature in this story. Soon some things will happen that will help her get her groove back (wink). Gloomy as it may be, the stuff death with is this chapter is actually important for the plot that will start developing from the next chapter so even if it bores you I'll advise you to pay attention (I'm a teacher, I can't help making these kind of remarks)_

_Forks in this story is a much bigger town than the one in the book. I could have moved the whole story to NY like I did with my other story but this way I have more freedom to le the girls run around and do their thing._

_So now, with all due pride and modesty I give you........the first proper chapter! (bows out)_

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**Say hello to the angels **

_**(Bella Swan)**_

I don't like Mondays.

In fact, I fucking hate them.

Bad things always happen on Monday.

My first boyfriend dumped me on a Monday.

Mom mom folded her car around a tree on a Monday.

My dad got kicked out of the police force because some jackass framed him on a Monday.

I got kicked out of the police academy on a Monday.

And now I had a whole fucking S.W.A.T.-team standing beside my bed on a fucking Monday.

I_ really_ don't like Mondays.

So minutes later I found myself in the familiar surroundings of the backseat of a cop car once more, trying to convince the overzealous police officer that I was just an innocent bystander in this case.

He just laughed and looked at me through the rear view mirror. "I'm sure you are darling," he smirked before his face turned serious, almost menacing, "but I know who you are and Lenny Briscoe was a great friend and colleague."

I was royally screwed. I only hoped Angela was on duty today. She might be the only one able to get me out of this stinking mess.

Why did I always have to fall for the bad guy? Was there something wrong with me? A glitch in my head or something that made it impossible for me to find a decent guy? It's not as if I haven't been trying.

There was Chad - sweet, dorky Chad - who lived on an old fishing boat and looked perfectly harmless. Sure, he had been as dull as dishwater and I had never been as bored as I was during the two weeks we went out together but at least I got a decent lobster out of it. How the fuck was I to know that 'fishing' for him actually meant casing out the large seafront homes for burgling potential?

I really thought Mike was going to be different. I didn't find him in a club for starters. I found him in a grocery store, feeling up pears like he was fondling women's breast. He was just emanating 'I haven't got any since....forever' and I thought he was perfect. Just a sweet, clueless little guy who's only involvement with the police would have been a nervous phone call when he hadn't been seeing the old lady next door around for quite a while.

I should have seen the bloody signs.

He would twitch nervously in his seat every time he saw the white and blue of a police cruiser pass us by. I just thought he was an upstanding citizen who feared the police like upstanding citizens where supposed to do. How the hell was I supposed to know he was dealing drugs out of the boot of the same car we were driving around in?

The police officer was still glaring at me from behind the steering wheel. I couldn't see the guy sitting next to him but I suppose he was glaring just as hard as his buddie was. "Hey," I defended myself, "It's not like I had anything to do with it." Or Charlie, I added in my mind. I couldn't believe how eager to whole force had been to desert my dad. To believe the slander and not the man that had been in charge of running the police force in this fucked up town for as long as anyone could remember and doing a damn good job at it too.

"That's enough," the faceless guy in the passenger seat spat. "Just shut up and be glad we haven't handcuffed you."

Like that would have made any difference. The moment I would be walking into the police station escorted by two of Forks finest my humiliation would be complete.

I sighed, recognizing the familiar building as we pulled up in front of Forks' police headquarters. "Out," one of the police officers barked at me while holding open the door.

I didn't wait for further instructions but started walking towards the entrance. It wasn't like I didn't know my way around.

I remembered all the times when my mom and I would sneak into the station late at night to bring my dad milk and cookies or the time my mom thought it would be nice to have a picnic in one of the interview rooms. She always did crazy stuff like that. The look on my dad's face when my mom and me had walked into his office carrying a wicker basket and a picnic blanket was priceless.

The memory of that night was just the thing I needed as I walked into the public area, past the waiting room and on towards the little gate that lead to the interview rooms. Most people had the good grace to look like they distracted by something wildly interesting while I walked by but I could feel their stares burning into my back as soon as I had passed them.

"I'll take it from here guys." I breathed a sigh of relieve as I recognized Angela's voice.

Angela had been my best friend ever since we had started out at the police academy together. She had been the only one who didn't seem to like me because my father was the chief of police, but simply because she liked _me_. The rest had all acted nice and stuff but I had begun to grow suspicious of them as soon as they started to compliment me on my 'skills' at tackling the assault course. I mean, I could hold my won in fitness training and on the firing range but I had never had any illusions about being agile. I was just too damn clumsy for that.

Angela had been the only one brave enough to laugh at me and tell me I looked like an idiot. We had been best friend ever since, even when the whole ass kissing brigade had run from me like a bat out of hell after the whole Charlie-incident.

"Thanks Ange, you're a lifesaver."

"That's what friends are for," she giggled, motioning for me to follow her. "So, you started dating again?"

"Don't start," I growled.

"Sorry," she said, holding her hand out in front of her. "It's just so funny how you manage to always pick the complete assholes."

"I should just follow my auntie Marie's example and become a nun," I said, following Angela upstairs to the break room. "But then again, knowing my luck I'd probably stumble on the only nunnery in the world that's into human trafficking or something."

"So how are you doing?" I knew the question was meant well, I saw it in her eyes, and really, I couldn't blame her for asking it but I couldn't help but wince all the same. I didn't want to think about how I was doing. I was happy living in a state of denial.

"I'm fine," I lied, hoping she'd let it slide. "Look, can I get out of here already? I don't really like being back here."

"Sorry," Angela blushed. I hated myself for using the past as an excuse to get away from her. "You need to write a statement and leave your name and contact information for when we have some more questions but I think you can leave after that."

I quickly wrote everything down, while sipping on the cup of coffee Angela had placed in front of me. I tried to be meticulous – even describing Mikes nervous reaction to police cars – in the hope that in spite of my past history they would believe me.

I was just putting the finishing touches to my statement when I heard the door to the break room open.

"So, what was it now?" Ben smirked, looking up from his desk. "Child molester? Axe murderer?"

"Drug dealer," I smirked, throwing the pen back onto the table.

"Figures," he muttered under his breath.

Ben was the only other cop who still talked to me after what had happened and I knew that wasn't just because he was Angela's boyfriend and wanted to stay on her good side. Ben had worked closely with my father for a couple of years and he was one of the few officers who had stood by him and had even been willing to testify on his behalf.

"look, I'm going to get out of here," I announced, rising from the uncomfortable wooden chair. "I have to get to work sometime today."

"And how is life in the private sector?" Ben teased. I knew how police officers talked about private detective, hell, I had even contributed my fair share of snide remarks in my day. If only they knew.

"Slow," I lied. "I guess with the recession men just aren't to eager to spend their hard earned cash on mistresses and all that shit. That or their wifes just don't give a crap anymore."

"Don't be a stranger," Angela said, hugging me as we said goodbye. "Call me tonight. We need to have a girls night out."

"I will," I sighed, knowing it wasn't likely anything like that would be happening soon. There was no knowing what Carlisle had in store for us next. For all I knew we would be shipped off to Siberia for our next assignment within the next hour.

Angela escorted me back down to the public parts of the police station before saying goodbye and urging me once more to call her soon.

I looked around me once more before exiting the building. I hated being back here. I though I had moved passed it - closed it off and locked it away in some hidden place – but I guess there's no escaping the past.

I hated being bitter like this – it wasn't who I was – but it was hard to be all perky and optimistic when you whole word had fallen apart around you.

It had come so unexpected I was still in shock, even after more than a year had passed. One day your life is heading in all the right directions and the next moment shit is hitting fans all around you.

I remembered that faithful day. I had just gotten back to my room after another gruesome day of climbing, running and trying to shoot a target from a ridiculous distance when my dad called. I knew something was off the moment I saw his name appear on the screen. Charlie wasn't a talker and we had had a proper conversation with words and sentences and all that only a few days ago.

--

FLASHBACK

--

"Bella?"

"Dad?" The tone of his voice made me nervous. Something was off. "What happened?"

"Briscoe and Curtis are dead." Charlie was never one to beat around the bush.

"What happened?" I yelled.

"We raided one of the warehouses owned by the Volturi after one of Curtis's informants told us about a deal that was going down. Somehow they must have gotten wind of it because when we pulled up in front of the warehouse all hell broke loose."

"What happened?" I repeated, my voice barely registering above a whisper.

"The entire guard must have been there, hidden from sight by the merchandise........" he paused, his voice sounding strange...haunted....broken. "Briscoe and Curtis where the first ones to go in......They got shot as soon as they opened the doors."

"But....." I sobbed. I knew this was part of the job. Being a police officer had it's dangers and sometimes colleagues would get shot. Still, the fact that uncle Lenny, the man who had joined the force at the same time my dad had, who had bounced me on his lap when I was just a small child, was dead was a very hard pill to swallow.

"There was nothing we could do, Bella," Charlie said. I could hear his tears in his voice. "There were too many of them. We had to pull out."

"And the Volturi?" If they managed to finally put the Volturi and their guard behind bars then at least some tiny good would have come out of this mess.

"I don't know if there's anything we can do about them......" my dad replied. "I mean, the warehouse is owned by one of their fronts but I'm sure their lawyers will find a way around that."

"But they shot at you," I yelled. "Surely that can't go unpunished?"

"There is no way of knowing for sure if they were even behind it," Charlie sighed. I could hear the strain in his voice as he spoke. "Remember? We didn't see anyone."

"How are you dad?"

"Broken," he admitted, a small sob escaping his lips. "I just had to tell Annie and Mel their husbands had died. It's something you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy." I couldn't remember the last time my dad had cried – or rather: I didn't want to remember it. He'd always just been there. A rock of reliability and strength. _My_ rock of reliability and strength. It was hard to imagine that right now he needed someone else to rely on.

"I'm coming over," I stammered. "I'll be there in under an hour." I did the math in my head. It would take me just about an hour to tell one of the staff at the Academy I would be gone for the night and to drive out to the suburbs where my dad lived.

"No, no," he replied almost immediately. "You need to focus on your training. I'll be fine. I've just ordered some pizza and there's a game on. That's all I need."

"Are you sure dad?" I knew my question was in vain. I had heard the determination in his voice and well, I didn't get my stubbornness from a stranger. We Swans had never been prone to getting emotional in front of others, not even our own family. I could see why Charlie wanted to be alone, even though it had me worried sick.

"I'll be fine," he assured me. "Good night honey, and give 'em hell over there."

"Will do dad," I said, trying to smile.

--

END OF FLASHBACK

--

I wished that had been the extent of it. Loosing two of Forks most esteemed police officers had been a terrible blow, but nothing could have prepared us for what came next.

Somehow a file popped up one day linking my dad to the Volturi. I still didn't know how they managed it, but they even had some very convincing photographs of my dad shaking hands with Aro Volturi, the godfather of the Washington division of the Mafia.

Even though nothing could actually tie my dad to the warehouse raid, conclusions were drawn and soon everyone seemed convinced he had been the snitch who had gotten Briscoe and Curtis killed.

Internal Affairs came down on him like a ton of bricks, searching his house and mine for evidence and questioning everyone around us. Soon afterwards my dad handed in his badge and resigned before anyone could get round to firing him.

He had been completely innocent of course. I still didn't know who framed him or why they had been after Charlie but I knew that Charlie was just as incapable of committing a crime as Martha Steward. Okay, wrong example but the fact remained that the only crime Charlie had ever committed was growing that ridiculous pornstache of his.

As soon as the police knocked on my door with a search warrant I knew what was coming. Even though I hadn't done anything and they hadn't even pressed charges against Charlie, there was no way they'd let me continue at the Police Academy.

In the end they had phrased it rather neatly. Instead of chasing me out of the building covered in tar and feathers they had informed me that my inability to complete the assault course within the time frame required for a rookie police officer was staring to become an issue and advising me to start pursuing other employment. In other words: get the hell out of here before we fire your sorry ass.

Little did they know there wasn't another type of employment I had ever wanted to pursue. I had wanted to become a cop – just like my daddy – for as long as I could remember. Sure, I was smart enough to get a masters in English at a decent university and I had probably read more books than all of the students and most of the teaching staff at your average English department but it wasn't what I wanted.

I wanted to fight crime, to make the world a safer place.

In the end they hadn't been able to make a case against Charlie. The only real 'evidence' they had against him where some vague rumors and the photograph of him and Aro.

Of course...the damage had been done.

--

FLASHBACK

--

"Hey Bells." I knew something was up as soon as my dad started talking.

"Hey dad. What's up?" I tried to keep my voice light though my nerves were pounding in my throat. I couldn't handle another blow. Not right now.

I had moved back in with my dad after I had left the Academy. It had been weird since both of us where at home all the time, but we had managed. I kept to my room most of the time, giving Charlie free reign over the television, knowing he couldn't exist without his job and ESPN. At least he still had the latter.

We hardly ever left the house in those first weeks, except to get provisions at the local supermarket. The death glares people were giving us made it easier and safer to stay in.

"Nothing," he shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "But now that you mention it....there is something I wanted to run by you."

"Spill," I shrugged.

"I'm going out of my mind here," he said and I could hear the desperation and impatience in his voice. "I need to work."

I nodded.

"I've called in a few favors and an old friend of mine was able to get me a job at Sixkiller Enterprises as a bail enforcement agent."

"A bounty hunter?" I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

"I have no other choice Bells," Charlie yelled, brushing his hands through his hair."You have to understand that. I have no other choice!"

"Yeah, you have!" I yelled back. "What's wrong with staying here and finding a new job?"

"Do you really think there's anyone who would hire me after what happened? I'm tainted goods Bells!"

"You could become a private detective," I tried. Private detectives were mocked about as much as bounty hunters over at the police station but at least 'private detective' had a more...official and tolerable ring to it.

"And be laughed at by my former buddies from the force?"

"They'll laugh even harder when they find out you've become a bounty hunter," I spat back. "Is this some midlife crisis thing? What's next? Are you going to grow your hair and buy a Harley?"

"I'm doing this Bells," he sighed defeated. "I'm leaving tonight."

"Tonight?" I jumped up from the couch. "Couldn't you have let me know a little sooner dad?" I looked at his face and saw for the first time how much older he looked. I had been so wrapped up in my own misery for the last couple of weeks that I had paid far too little attention to Charlie. His life had fallen to pieces too. I should have seen that sooner.

"I only found out today," he whispered. "I'm sorry Bella, I know this is hard for you too, but I have to leave tonight. I need to get out of this place before I go out of my mind."

"So how long do we have?" I whispered.

"A couple of hours," he sighed. "I still need to pack."

"You're not coming home?"

"Not in a while," he explained. "I talked to the owner and he said something about heading south as soon as possible."

So this was it. He was just going to leave me here.

Part of me – the reasonable part – argued that this was all for the best. Away from all the stares and the gossip of Forks Charlie would be able to heal and go back to his former, confident self. He had been right, he couldn't stay in Forks after what had happened. I just didn't expect him to leave this soon.

The other, more emotional, part of me just wanted my daddy to be here with me. He had been the only thing I could fall back on for the last couple of weeks and I just didn't know what to do without him.

"You can keep the house," he said, walking back into the kitchen with a large duffel bag on one of his arms.

"Thanks." I didn't know what else to say. "I made dinner. Do you have time for that before you leave?"

"I'll make time for that. It smells good," he said, taking a seat at the table.

We ate our meals in silence, as usual, though the air was so thick you could cut it with a knife.

"I should be going," Charlie said, scooping up his last spoonful. "I don't want to be late."

"So, this is it?" I said, sticking my hands in the pockets of my jeans as I walked him to the door.

"Yeah," he said, flinging his bag into the trunk of the car. "Take care of yourself Bells."

"You too," I spoke into his shoulder as he pulled my into a tight bear hug.

"I'll call you as soon as I get to wherever the hell I'm going," he said, prying my arms from his neck.

"Don't forget to eat healthy," I yelled after him as he slid into the drivers seat of his car.

There was so much more I wanted to say to him. God knows when I was going to see him again. I should tell him stuff, like I love you and such, but I just couldn't find the words.

Neither could he, it seemed.

We just looked at each other for a while before I heard him turn the ignition and the car slowly pulled out of the driveway.

He was gone.

It was only then that I cried and I cried a fucking river.

--

END OF FLASHBACK

--

Coming out of my thoughts I realized I must have been sitting in my car – parked right in front of my apartment building – for quite some time. I couldn't even remember driving home.

"Great, just another thing to add to the list for my next therapy session," I muttered to myself as I got out.

I hated myself for still feeling this way even after a year had passed. Charlie seemed to be doing great, or at least he told me so whenever he called. So why couldn't I just get over this?

The fact that Alice and Rosalie had been through much worse things than I had and still managed to be happy and optimistic made me even more angry with myself. I had to get over this before my anger would make me do stupid things. Like kill myself. Or kill pretty fluffy animals just because their prettiness and fluffiness got on my nerves.

"I'm home!" I yelled as soon as I entered the apartment I shared with Rose and Alice, my two fellow 'angels'. I couldn't wait to lock myself in my room, get a nice hot shower and crawl over the covers.

Of course someone had other ideas.

"Hi honey, how was your day?" a high pitched voice sang from the direction of the family room.

Shit. Alice was home.

I quickly deliberated my options. I could make a dash for my room and hope the lock was sturdy enough to keep the little pixie out but I knew that once Alice was determined to speak to you there was no force on earth that could stop her. She'd probably just blow up my door with some C4 she had lying about the house.

"Great," I growled, walking into the family room and flopping down on the couch with my arms crossed in front of my chest.

Yup. There she was, sitting in the armchair opposite from me in all her cute feminine glory, her short black hair styled into perfection. It was a weird thing to know that this cute, perpetually pink clad little pixie could render just about any man unconscious withing a minute of she wanted to.

"Look who woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning!" Alice giggled at my morose expression. "What happened? Did Mike attempt to get you off again?"

I growled at her. Evil pixie and her uncanny ability to wheedle every last detail of your sex life out of you. "Nope, got arrested."

"Again?" she snickered. "What was it this time? Flipping the bird at a police officer?"

When I had just started out at Carlisle Cullen Investigations I had thought my shaky relationship with Forks' finest would have been a problem. I mean, cops generally had a thing against private investigators as it was, no need to fuel that further by hiring public enemy number one right?

Carlisle didn't seem to see it as an insurmountable obstacle and – much to my surprise – I found that after a few months of being bombarded with speeding tickets and breathalyser tests everything returned to a somewhat normal state. Well, except for the occasional brush in when we beat them to a crime scene or another one of my one night stands got arrested.

"Nope, geeky Mike turned out to be a drug dealer."

The way Alice looked at me, her eyes so big I was starting to fear they would fall out of their sockets and her mouth hanging open, was enough to make a little bit of my pent up anger and frustration disappear.

"You've got to be kidding," Alice yelled. "I didn't think he had it in him!"

I know, right," I growled.

"Just wait until I tell Rose," she giggled. "Wait, just let me get her on speaker phone!"

"I'm glad someone finds this all wildly amusing," I sighed.

Alice seemed to pick up on the fact that I wasn't exactly in the mood to be teased about my fail train love life because she put down the phone and crawled next to me on the couch instead.

"You had no way of knowing," she soothed, brushing her hand through my hair.

"Why is it so hard for me to find a decent man in a city as large as Forks?" I sobbed. "I mean....they've got to be out there somewhere...don't they? Why do I always get the losers and the criminals?"

"Bella," Alice sighed, wrapping her tiny arms around me. "Just let it out honey."

"I just want to be loved," I cried. "Is that so much to ask? To just find a decent, nice looking man, have lots of sex and babies and still go out fighting crime with you guys?"

"Of course not honey," Alice cooed.

"Then what the fuck do I have to do?"

"For one, quit settling for losers," Alice said sternly, sticking her index finger up to stop my remonstrations before they came out. "Even better: quit searching for men altogether. If you want to find a decent man, let him come to you instead of desperately searching for him. Be the flame, not the moth."

"Okay. Flame not moth," I repeated. "What else?"

"Put on some nice clothes," she scowled, looking at the pair of worn jeans and long sleeved Iron Maiden t-shirt I was wearing. "The grunge look is so last decade."

Somehow Alice's eagerness to involve a makeover didn't surprise me. "Okay, dress like Paris. Check."

"You don't have to start dressing like a cheap ho," Alice huffed, rolling her eyes at me. "All I'm asking is that for once in your life you ditch the scary t-shirt and Salvation Army jeans and – I don't know – add some primary colors to your wardrobe."

"I think I can do that."

"How about we go shopping this afternoon?" Alice offered enthusiastically. "I could give you a few tips?"

"Somehow that doesn't make me feel much better," I muttered. Spending an afternoon at the mall with the little fashion nazi was just about the complete opposite of how I wanted to spend my day.

"And if you want to start finding a nice man you have to do something about that scowl of yours," she giggled, tapping the crease between my eyebrows with her finger. "Angry women are scary and scary women don't get asked out by nice men."

Before I knew it Alice had jumped off the couch and started mapping out our shopping trip like she was planning to invade Poland.

I groaned, knowing this wasn't just going to be a simple case of grab, pay and get the hell out of there. Alice was anything if not thorough and dead serious when it came to shopping. I swear, from the way she talked about it you'd think it was a matter of life and death.

"Look, here's what we're going to do," Alice started.

She was interrupted when our mobile phones started beeping simultaneously.

Thank God!

Carlisle.

I flipped my phone open to reveal the now very familiar message.

_It's Carlisle, Angel._

_Time to go to work._

Alice's face fell when she read the message and for a moment I almost felt sorry for her.

Almost.

"I guess we're going to have to postpone our shopping trip," I grinned. "By the way, do you know where Rose is?"

"She got called in on some job earlier," Alice replied, pulling her phone from her pocket. "I'll just see if I can reach her."

"I'll go change while you're at it," I said, disappearing into my room for a quick shower and change of outfit.

"She's going to meet us at the office," Alice said, grabbing her purse, as I walked back into the family room. "She was on her way there already when she got the message."

"We're taking my car," Alice chirped before I could say anything.

Great.

"I thought it was my turn to drive," I argued. Alice drove like a freaking maniac and her car was....ostentatious to say the least.

"Nope," Alice grinned. "My turn. Remember? We used that old heap of yours last Monday when we went grocery shopping."

Right. That was when I met Mike. Not the kind of memory I needed right now.

"Yeah, well grocery shopping doesn't count," I spat back. "And my Torino is a vintage car and not an old heap, thank you very much!"

"Oh please, it's even older than you are! It looks like you borrowed it from Starsky and Hutch!"

"At least it doesn't look like it was previously owned by Tweety bird," I growled, looking at the bright yellow Porsche in front of me.

"Just get in and shut up," Alice giggled giving me a little shove.

"Get in and hold on for dear life is more like it," I muttered under my breath as Alice tore out of the garage.

"I heard that!" Alice growled as she sped through a red light. I prayed there wasn't some cop lurking in the undergrowth. I had seen enough of the police station for today.

The only good thing about Alice's driving was that it never lasted long. Her inability to keep to the speed limits took care of that. Soon we were pulling up in front of the big, stern looking headquarters of Carlisle Cullen Investigations, though I wondered if Carlisle Cullen had ever stepped foot in his own building.

"What do you think they've got for us?" Alice thought out loud as we entered the foyer.

"I hope it has something to do with the Volturi," I answered, waving a quick hello to Lauren, the receptionist. She scowled back at me. Well, at least I wasn't the only one in a bad mood today.

"You always say that," Alice sighed. She knew all about my eagerness to get revenge for what they had done to my family.

I shrugged as I followed her upstairs to Emmett's office, or Bosley as we called him. When we got closer to the office I realized something was out of the ordinary here.

In stead of the usual silence or bad eighties and nineties pop our current Bosley seemed to be favoring I could hear a string of moans and groans coming from the other side of the doors.

"What the fuck?" I whispered at Alice as I started to recognize the voices those moans and groans belonged to.

"Looks like Rose has finally come out of her 'I hate everything that has a penis' episode," Alice chuckled, reaching for the doorknob.

"Are you sure you want to go in there?" I asked. I for one, had no appetite for watching real life porn, especially not when it's your best friend and your boss who are betting busy.

"Just think about it," Alice replied, smiling wickedly, "We'll never have to draw straws over who has to do the scud anymore." She was having a point there. Having some good blackmailing material to hold over you co-worker was always a good thing. "Just suck it up and think about the rewards."

The look of shock on Emmett's face when we walked in on them – him leaning back in his desk chair with a blissful look on his face while Rose crouched in front of him, her hair thankfully obscuring Emmett's penis from sight – was priceless.

I had to hand it to him though, the shock only lasted for a few seconds. After that he just leaned farther back, put his hands behind his head and grinned at us, while Rose shot to her feet like a comet and started straightening out her hair and clothes again while blushing furiously.

"Well, Good Morning Angels!" he boomed with a shit eating grin on his face.

Yup. Just another day at the office.

* * *

_I'm a history teacher, not a police officer or criminal investigator. Hell, I'm not even American. Most of the police stuff in this chapter was derived from watching NYPD Blue, Law & Order and trawling the Internet. If there are any big mistakes in this chapter please let me know and I'll try to fix them._

_The next chapter will be in Emmett's POV and, as said above, is very different in tone. It will also have the beginnings of the main plot this story evolves around._

_For now, please review._


	3. Sex Bomb

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

* * *

**Sex Bomb**

_**(Emmett 'Bosley' McCarty)**_

"Carlisle Cullen Investigations, how may I help you?" I must have said the same stupid sentence a thousand times since I had started working for Carlisle but still it didn't bore me which was saying something because God knows how easily I get bored.

Some desperate housewife started cackling through the phone about a cheating husband and the bitchass skank he was boning and how she wanted proof to sue every last penny out of his dirty cheating ass.

"Of course, I'll send someone over to go over the details with you as soon as possible," I said, trying not to sound annoyed.

The girls were going to be pissed. They hated this kind of shit.

I couldn't blame them.

When your core business consisted of chasing criminals down the street, breaking into heavily secured offices to get the lowdown on some big corporate fraud case or hand to hand combat with ex-Navy Seals then taking photo's of some skinny white mans ass as he got sucked off by his secretary wasn't exactly exciting.

But it all came with the job.

As exciting as the big jobs may be to them, it was the small ones that gave us our credibility, our cover up.

I sighed. Who to call?

Rosalie was already out on another small job, Bella had been unreachable all morning and I clearly remembered Alice's reaction the last time I had assigned her to one of these jobs. I shuddered. For someone as small as her the pixie sure as hell could be scary.

Sometimes I just wished I had listened to my momma and told Carlisle where he could stick his job.

I was just getting ready to wrap up my MBA at the University of Tennessee when one day John Bosley had knocked on the door of my dorm room offering me a job at Carlisle Cullen Investigations.

Of course I had laughed at him in his face. I was going to make it big time in the world, become some rich son of a bitch CEO and marry a supermodel just like my momma always said I would (well, apart from the marry a supermodel bit). I wasn't going to take some loser job in a place known for having rain nearly every fucking day of the year.

Hell no.

Unfortunately for me Bosley didn't take no for an answer. He even turned up at my house one day, sipping tea and eating cookies with my momma as if they had been friends for years.

I told him to get the fuck out of my house. Nobody who eats my damn cookies can possibly ever expect me to take a job with them. My momma agreed. She didn't like that Bosley character and all his smooth talking ways.

So for the next couple of weeks I went out in search for a job, came pretty close to landing a few of them too, but in they end they always turned me down. And every night when I had gotten another rejection John fucking Bosley dropped by to renew his offer.

So I yielded and talked to him. Just to shut him up.

He told me about Carlisle, how was some kind of billionaire do-gooder who wanted to spend part of his fortune by making the world a safer place to live in. He told me about the angels and how they had free range in fighting the assholes this fine nation had produced and he told me all about being a Bosley and connecting the girls with Carlisle.

I laughed at him some more and told him to get the hell away from me.

He came back the next day.

So I lied to my momma about taking a job at some hotshot investment agency up north, prayed every night that God wouldn't strike me death for doing so and moved into the nice office on the first floor where I spend my days sharpening pencils, looking out the window, taking calls and filing reports.

If I didn't know better I'd think I had become some kind of glorified secretary. Hell, I think I even was one. The worst thing about all of it was that I had never even seen the guy I was supposed to be working for. According to my predecessor Carlisle – if that even was his real name – preferred to remain anonymous, which wasn't a great surprise since his little girlie squad broke every rule in the damn book. Rumor had it only one of his employee – one of the first angels that Carlisle had hired – had ever uncovered his secret. Not that it would be any help to me if I ever wanted to uncover Carlisle's dirty little secret. He had gone for the best tactic of getting her to shut up. He had married her.

I didn't mind being a pencil pusher at the office of the shyest man in history though, not in the least. It meant that I could spend my days ogling her.

Rose.

My angel.

And I'm not just saying that because she's one of Carlisle's angels, I mean she really is an angel, or how I would describe one if someone would have asked me.

I'd do just about anything for her.

One of my first jobs after I had started had been to recruit another angel after Lauren Mallory, her predecessor had been transferred to a desk job at the agency after 'improper' behavior towards one of the clients. I wondered what the hell she must have been doing since, judging from the thing I had seen and the stories the girls told me, there was precious little things that were considered 'improper'.

The prospective angel – Bella Swan – had just been discharged from Forks General Hospital after a nasty collision with a monster truck and Carlisle instructed me to drop by her house to see if she was interested. Of course without telling her what the job really entailed.

Easy, you'd think.

Any disgraced female copper would jump at the opportunity to fight crime and get paid very handsomely to do so. Wouldn't you think?

Well....apparently Bella did not.

In fact, she all but bit my head off when I asked her if she wanted to come and work for Carlisle.

That girl was scary as hell – and still is if you'd ask me – but knowing what happened to her who could really blame her? She was just mad at the world right now but even I could already start to see the signs of improvement.

At least Alice and Rose knew to some extent what she was going through. They'd all been there.

To the unobservant observer they must seem like just another three beautiful, crazy chicks. Bella, mad at the world, Rosalie still not sure whether she wanted to kick the world in the balls or charm the pants off of it and Alice wanting to decorate it in pretty colors.

I, however, knew better than that. Being the new Bosley in town had also meant I had to read up on the girls past history and to say their personal files made for some light reading would be almost a criminal offense.

Alice was the first of the present angels to have been recruited by Carlisle. The information about her life before joining Carlisle Cullen Investigations was pretty vague but from what I could deduct from her file her parents had dumped her in some kind of mental hospital when she started 'seeing things'. There she had been treated by some kind of doctor from hell who used his patients as Guinna pigs for testing out his new medicines.

Carlisle's eyes had fallen on her after she reached the news when the whole hospital had gone up in flames, killing nearly everyone. Somehow she had survived and ended up in hospital with some minor cuts and bruises and a serious case of withdrawal from the drugs she had been forced to take.

After she had sobered up again the psychiatrist on call had concluded that there was nothing wrong with her and she was free to go. That's where we came in. Carlisle took her under his wing almost as soon as she wandered out of the hospital and the rest was history.

Rose's story was equally nasty gold digger parents had pushed her to aim for the stars when it came to men and - being the amazing wonderful sexy obedient daughter that she was – she did.

Unfortunately for Rosalie the man she pursued turned out to be a total creep. All smiles and gentlemanly behavior on the outside but a sadistic evil son of a bitch on the inside. He must have felt flattered by attracting the attention of someone as beautiful and angelic as Rose or she must have done something else to attract his attention because they started dating and he even asked her to marry him.

On the night before the wedding it turned out that he had never intended to go through with it in the first place. It had all been some kind of sick joke to him, just to see how far the Hales would be willing to take that shit. And Rosalie payed the price for it.

He showed up at her doorstep with some of his friends where they molested and raped her before leaving her for death. Luckily some neighbor of hers heard them leave, bragging about what they had done and called the emergency services. They managed to get her to hospital in time and saved her life.

But that wasn't all of it.

Somehow her son of a bitch parents managed to convinced themselves that it was all Rosalie's fault and threw her out of the house as soon as she was able to walk again. That's when she was found by Carlisle.

They had both had some time to deal with their pain and problems and now they were helping Bella deal with hers. I had a feeling the squirts problems ran much deeper than a renegade cop and some scowling police officers. I hoped Rose and Alice would be able to fix her.

If only for my own safety.

I snorted. All this looking after three women crap was starting to turn me into a chick. If I didn't get some action soon I'd have to change my name into Emilia and start shopping for bra's.

Then my salvation came blaring through the radio.

Tom fucking Jones.

The master of pussy himself.

True, he had started to morph into some kind of creepy tangerine motherfucker lately but the man could still sing. And collect panties, but that was a whole different matter.

I cranked up the volume as my body started to sway involuntary to the rhythm of the chorus.

_Sexbomb, sexbomb you're a Sexbomb  
You can give it to me, when I need to come along  
Sexbomb, sexbomb you're my sexbomb  
And baby you can turn me on_

I was totally feeling that shit, especially with the mental image of Rosalie dancing along with me – preferably naked - in my mind so when the bridge was coming on I felt really inspired, jumped onto the couch and pumped my fist in the air, singing along from the top of my lungs

_You can give me more and more counting up the score  
You can turn me upside down and inside out  
You can make me feel the real deal  
And I can give it to you any time because you're mine_

I should have known that sort of shit is always good for another episode of embarrassing moments in the life of Emmett McCarty and sure as hell when I turned round again, humming along to the chorus there she was.

My angel.

Laughing uncontrollably.

Fuck.

"You have quite a lovely singing voice, Bosley," she panted after she had calmed down a bit. "Is that something you do often?"

"No!" I almost yelled, not wanting to appear as some sad son of a bitch who sang to his geraniums. "I have better things to do with my spare time. What are you doing here?"

"I got a call from Carlisle," she said, pointing at the little envelope that was dancing across my computer screen. Probably Carlisle telling me he would call in to give the girls a new assignment in a couple of hours.

Then it dawned on me. She had called me Bosley. Not Emmett. Bosley. I didn't like that. "Oh and you can call me Emmett if you like," I added, trying to put a tough guy look on my face to make up for being such a total idiot before. "It sounds less....formal."

"So....._Emmett_," she purred, turning on her heals to look at me, "tell me how you would like to spend your spare time?"

Snuggling up with you? Taking you out of dates? Fucking your pretty little brains out?

"Well....ehm...." Oh for heavens sake think of something intelligent and masculine to say you idiot! "I like to work on my car?"

Her eyes lit up like lights on a Christmas tree.

Score!

"Really?" she purred, moving just a little closer. "And what kind of car is it you work on?"

"I've just got a new Jeep Wrangler," I shrugged. I was actually quite proud of my car. It was the love of my life, well, apart from Rosalie of course.

"Which model did you get?" she asked, moving another few steps closer. I could see her eyes were starting to get a little dilated and her breathing had become a bit heavier than usual.

Wait a minute? Was she starting to get turned on?

"The Unlimited 3,8 Sport edition," I said, trying to keep my voice cool and collected when if fact I was eager and willing. The horny little motherfucker inside of me was jumping up and down like a Jack Russel Terrier.

"Did you get the off roading package?" She was testing me, I could tell.

"Of course I did," I snorted. You'd be a loser not to.

"What kind of rims did you go for?" Somehow all this dirty talking about rims and off road packages was starting to make my pants feel a little bit too snug. I shifted uncomfortably, hoping she didn't notice. The last thing I needed right now was another embarrassing moment in the life of Emmett McCarthy.

"Sixteen inch," I admitted, knowing this wasn't going to impress her.

"Beginner," she muttered with a smug little smile.

"Hey!" I yelled. No one was going to trash my baby, not even the love of my life. "I can always upgrade to seventeen inch whenever the fuck I feel like it. How come you know so much about cars anyway?"

"I like to work on them myself," she shrugged. "Though I'm mostly interested in what's under the hood."

I wish you were interested in what's under my hood.

"So what kind of car do you drive around in?"

"A BMW M6 Convertible," she purred, her eyes slightly glazing over.

I whistled. "Nice! Did you do any work on it?"

"Tons," she smiled, taking another few steps closer, her body now almost flush with mine. I hoped she wasn't feeling the effect she was having on me. She raised herself up so she was standing on tiptoe, her nose brushing against my hair as she leaned in. "You have no idea of the things I can do....." she purred in a low, almost whispering tone that shot straight to my already very active and aroused groin.

Oh, Mary mother of God was she flirting with me?

Please, tell me she is....Please, please,please, I've been a good boy (well most of the times) and I'm sorry of all my thinking about sex has grossed you out but I'm a man and I work alongside some of the most gorgeous women on the planet and I can't help getting a little bit....carried away sometimes but if you would help me get Rose I would gladly offer my balls up to you on a silver platter.....Well, come to think of it...I would rather not because I will be needing them, but I would do pretty much everything and never ask for anything else and I'm sorry if I'm rambling and not making any sense but I really really want her.

"I don't?" I managed to croak, probably sounding like a complete idiot.

"Sit," she commanded.

I did because I was an obedient boy and obedient little fuckers always got rewarded.

"Now what could I do to show you....." she pondered, licking her lips suggestively while staring at my groin.

"Perhaps you could.....talk?....about it?" I stammered. It wasn't like I was some kind of pussy or something. I just really liked Rosalie and even though I loved her staring at my dick, it wasn't how I wanted our relationship to start.

"Talk?" she laughed. She must have had other ideas.

"Talk?"

"Okay," she leaned back on her heals and crossed her arms in front of her chest. "Talk."

"Well......Uhm......I-I....." I should have prepared some topics for conversation for when you're trying to built a steady relationship while the woman of your dreams is staring at your dick. "H-how did the De Soto case go?"

"Boring," she replied, rolling her eyes at me. "The idiot wasn't even smart enough to pull the curtains shut so I was able to take pictures of him with his pants around his ankles within five minutes. Are we done talking yet?"

"No...yes....Well....Before you....dive in...I would like to say......I like you and......"

"Yes, I like you to and we're going to have lots of sex and babies and skip off into the sunset together," Rosalie interrupted me, as she stood towering over me with a mischievous glint in her eyes. "Better?"

I nodded, closing my eyes as she crouched down in front of me. There was no way I could watch her go down on me and not fire the big gun instantly and she'd never let me live that down.

I felt her open the button of my pants and work the zipper down. I couldn't help but take a peek as I felt her soft warm hands grab me and pull little Emmett out of his prison. Bad fucking idea if you want to prevent premature ejaculation so I just leaned back , closed my eyes and prayed I could keep it together for a decent amount of time.

I felt her warm breath on my skin before her warm, wet tongue licked a trail from the base to the tip of my shaft before swirling over the head, lapping up the pre-cum that had gathered there.

I had died and gone to heaven.

I almost lost it again when she dove in and took almost all of me in her mouth, her little fingers massaging my balls.

Right when I had lifted my hands who, up until that moment, had held the armrests of my chair in a death grip, to weaved them through her long blond hair a sound coming from the doorway alerted me.

I cranked one eye open to see Alice and Bella standing in the doorway smirking at me.

Shiiiiiiiiit

Definitely another embarrassing moment in the life of Emmett McCarty.

I quietly nudged Rosalie with one of my legs while pondering what to do next. In the end I just opted to go with good old humor. You could never go wrong with that, right? So I just leaned back again while Rosey straightened her cute little self out, put on my bravest face and yelled. "Good Morning Angels!"

The little pixie actually had the brass to grin back and holler a 'Good Morning Bosley' at me before flopping down on the couch as if nothing had happened. Meanwhile Bella just stood in the doorway looking her usual pissed off self.

"So what's happening?" I asked after a minute of silence had passed.

"You mean apart from you dipping you pen in company ink?" Bella snorted, sitting down next to Alice on the couch.

"Yeah, apart from that." Something had definitely crawled up her panties and died this morning. Again. The place must be looking like a graveyard by now.

"She got arrested again," Alice grinned.

"Are you okay?" I was careful to frame my concern cautiously. You never knew when the scary bitch would come out again and lung at you.

"She has boy trouble," the little pixie sighed, wrapping one arm around Bella.

"Don't we all?" I nodded, earning a strange look from Rosey. "Well....uhm.....girl trouble for some of us that is." Way to go Emmett. Go put that foot in your mouth again!

"Mike?" Rose smirked. Alice nodded and mouthed 'drug dealer'. Boy that girl sure knew how to pick 'em.

"How did you know?" Bella said, her surprise offering a nice change from her usual passive aggressiveness.

"You always date bad guys," Rosalie shrugged, sitting down on Bella's other side. "I just thought he'd be more of a Peeping Tom or an exhibitionist than a drug dealer. I guess even I can get it wrong some times."

"Well, at least he won't be bothering me again for quite some time," Bella sighed. She looked so sad and defeated right now. It broke my heart because I'd seen the woman that lurked behind the scary, passive aggressive exterior. If I ever got my hands on the little twerp – or rather all of those little miscreants she had dated – I'd make him pay.

"Scoot," I said, waving over to the couch before I flopped down next to Bella. "Bella. All my angels," I wrapped my arms around the three of them and hugged them close, loving the way Rose seemed to mold into my side. "The heart is a muscle. Now in body building and all that girly fitness shit that you girls do, we exercise the muscle, and it grows bigger and stronger. It's the same with the heart."

"I must have the heart of a rhino," Alice muttered.

"You do. And you be proud of it," I smirked amidst muffled giggles of the girls. "Mes Anges, these little hurts will heal. And at crunch time, your hearts will be so buff, you'll be able to clean and jerk his love, three sets, ten reps each."

"Thanks boss," they sang in unison, looking up at me like they expected more wise lessons from the wise and knowing Bosley. I shifted uncomfortably. It's not like I came up with this kind of shit on my own. I heard it in some movie some time ago - probably some crappy remake of a classic tv-series – and file it away for further reference. It wasn't like I could come up with deep touchy feely shit like that on my own.

Thank heavens for Carlisle and ringing phones.

"Excuse me," I said, wriggling my way out of the group hug. "I have to take a phone call."

I walked to my desk, getting down to my core business. Not that it was too difficult - I just had to push a stupid button to connect Carlisle to the angels – but it was important none the less. My button pushing connected Carlisle to his angels so that he could give them their next assignment. Crimes may actually be solved or – even better – prevented just because I pushed that damn button so I was happy and proud to be able to do that. Even if it made me feel like a fucking secretary.

"_Good Morning Angels,"_ Carlisle's voice sounded through the receiver.

"Good Morning Carlisle," the angels sang back from their spot at the couch.

"_Alice, Rosalie, Bella, I hope you're rested and ready for your next assignment." _

"We are Carlisle," Alice sang. "What have you got for us?"

"_Emmett, if you would please turn on the projection screen?"_

"Of course Carlisle," I hated myself for almost singing along with them as I pushed yet another button and a huge screen started sliding down from the ceiling.

"_Some of you might remember Victoria Valentine,"_Alice nodded solemnly. I racked my brain. I had heard that name somewhere before. I think I read about it in one of the files. _"As you may or may not know, Victoria retired after sustaining heavy injuries on one of her assignments. He assailant was never caught but at the time we believed him or her to be linked to a gang called 'The Pack' because she was investigating said gang during the time of her attack." _

I remembered. Poor Vicky had taken three to the chest while she had been siting in her car during a routine stakeout. The only things that had saved her were the fact that her car had been one of those sturdy made vintage models that were virtually impenetrable and the fact that whoever shot at her did a lousy job.

Neither the police not the angels had been able to pinpoint her attacker. Sure, we had our suspicions but because the mode of attack differed from the way The Pack usually silenced their enemies and because there was a long list of people out to harm the angels we couldn't say anything for sure.

After the attack Carlisle had insisted all vehicles used by the angels would be equipped with bullet proof glass and a sleek, almost invisible, bullet proof vest had been added to the standard equipment of an angel. Victoria never returned after the incident and soon afterwards Carlisle had found her replacement in Rosalie Hale.

"_Sadly Victoria had another run in with The Pack yesterday and one – like her previous – she isn't likely to forget." _

"What happened?" Rose asked.

"Her boyfriend – a man by the name of Tyler Crowley - was found murdered in his car in a clearing in the woods," Carlisle explained. _"The way he was killed – a clear cut through his windpipe and carotid artery with a long bladed knife - pointing towards our old friends from the Pack." _The girls nodded, as they watched the gruesome pictures of the murdered man appear on the screen.

"Do we know why they went after Crowley?" Bella asked. "I mean, they probably know Victoria's retired, don't they? Why go after her now, years after she ceased to be a threat to them? Do we know for certain that she was their main objective?"

"_Very smart," _Carlisle praised. _"And you're on to something too. The home of Mr Crowley burned down to the ground not long after it's occupant had been killed and but the fire didn't eradicate all traces of the methamphetamine laboratory that occupies one of the rooms. The worst thing was that he was using resources of Forks General Hospital, the place where he worked as a blood analyst, to conduct his ghastly scheme."_

"So it seems you're not the only angel with a taste for bad guy's," Rosalie grinned, ruffling Bella's hair.

"Bitch," Bella muttered. I scowled at her. Nobody's calling my baby a bitch. No one but me.

She stuck her tongue out at me before turning her head to the little speaker on my desk again. "So why is this Victoria calling in our help? It looks to me like she should be glad to be rid of the guy."

"_Ms Valentine fears that now that the eye of the Pack has fallen on Crowley they will come after her again. She's asking us to keep an eye out a see if the Pack's interest in Crowley was simply because he was treading on their territory or if there was something more to it."_

The girls nodded and I could see plans starting to form in their heads. I couldn't for the life of me imagine how anyone would seek the company of a member of The Pack – Forks' most notorious gang – if they weren't out searching for drugs. There was nothing those horrible dogs stopped at, not even killing their own members

"_Now girls, I want you to take great care of how you proceed,"_ Carlisle warned. I couldn't agree more. _"We have all seen what the Pack is capable of doing and I would hate to see one of you end up in hospital or worse. Always remember that safety comes first." _

"We'll do that Carlisle," they sang in unison. Did they have any idea of how sexy that sounded?

"_They I wish you good luck on your assignment," _Carlisle answered before breaking the connection.

"So, how are we going to tackle this puppy?" Alice said, turning towards Bella and Rosalie. You'd almost think the little nut case was looking forward to it.

"I say we head over to the crime scene to do some investigating of our own," Bella suggested.

"And then we get dolled up and head for New Moon to see what we can learn there."

New Moon was the club owned by The Pack and the base from which they conducted their criminal activities. They had been smart enough, however, to always cover their traces and even though the police had raided the place dozens of times they had never found anything or managed to get a single informant on them.

"Sounds dangerous," I muttered. I didn't like the idea of my Rosie venturing behind enemy lines.

"Sounds like fun!" the pixie chirped amidst fierce nods of her fellow angels.

"Girls, girls," I yelled as they made their way for the door.

"What?" Rosalie looked a little peeved. I hope I hadn't blown it with her.

"Be careful out there," I warned them with a smirk. God, I'd always wanted to say that.

* * *

_I**s that the beginnings of a plot we see? Well yes, Watson, it is! **_

_**So who's the badguy in this story? What happened to Tyler? Can Victoria be trusted? Those questions will be answered (some partially) in the next chapter when we delve into the black mind of the 'smotth criminal'. The chapter is A LOT darker than this one so ye be warned.**_

_**I stole some lines from the movie for this chapter (the part where Emmett talks about the heart being a muscle and the line 'sounds like fun'). I tweaked them a little bit to fit in.**_

_**Emmett in this story will be a combination of Emmett from the books and Bill Murray's version of Bosley. I hope you liked him in this chapter. I had a lot of fun writing it.**_

_**For now, please review!**_


	4. Smooth Criminal

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

* * *

**This chapter is a little disturbing. It's told from the point of view from the bad guy and I can tell you: he's one sick piece of work. Ye be warned.**

* * *

**Smooth Criminal**

_**(James Midnight)**_

"Please don't kill me," the meaningless little man in front of me squirmed.

"Of course I won't," I laughed. "Yet."

"Why?" If the meaningless little man thought his ridiculous pleas for help would save him he really didn't know who he had in front of him.

"Why not?"

"I've never done you any harm," he pleaded, looking at me with big puppy dog eyes.

"You've never done me any good either," I shrugged, patting him on the shoulder. "At least, not while you are still alive."

"I'd give you anything – everything – if you let me go. Just name your price."

"Do you really think money can save you?" I turned towards him, noticing for the first time he had wet his pants. Pathetic little man. "But now you mention it…..there is something you can do for me."

Relief washed over his face. If only he knew.

"Anything," he repeated, holding his hands up in front of him.

"I need you to accompany me to your workplace."

This was a request he hadn't expected. The pathetic little man looked at me in surprise. "What?" he finally managed to stammer.

"I need you to get your pathetic little ass off the floor, put on some nice clean pants and drive me to the hospital," I explained.

"Why?"

"I thought you'd do anything to spare your pathetic little ass," I snarled. The pathetic little man was starting to get on my nerves. "Stop groveling and start changing."

The pathetic little man bolted to his feet and shot into his bedroom like a comet. I never knew a man could change his pants this fast when held at gunpoint.

"What now?" he asked as we pulled up in front of Forks General Hospital.

"We go in," I shrugged.

"Like this?"

"No you idiot." Seriously. Could anyone get more stupid? "You're going to find me something to blend in a little more and some kind of ID and we're going to pay a visit to your lab."

"Oh." He seemed to realize just now that it wasn't a guided tour of the hospital I was after.

"You are going to walk into the hospital, get me my stuff and come back and you're going to do it quickly and quietly, capice?" I warned.

He nodded, though I could see something in his eyes I didn't like.

"Remember: quickly and quietly," I spat, showing him my gun. "You wouldn't want to spend the rest of your days looking over your shoulder now, would you?" He shook his head. "Or find that sweet old lady next door butchered to death on your doormat one morning?"

The little old lady seemed to do the trick. The little twerp changed back to his former chalky white color and swallowed audibly.

"Thats my boy," I chuckled, patting his shoulder with my gun. "Now go fetch."

He was back in the blink of an eye, carrying what appeared to be a full doctors outfit. I quickly pulled on the green scrubs and lab coat before fastening the surgeon's mask around my neck and pulling my beanie over my hair again. I would change my hat for a surgeons cap as soon as we had reached our destination.

"Time to get going," I stated as soon as I was done changing.

"W-what?"

"It's time for you to show me where you work, you dimwit!" I growled, working my hands into a pair of latex gloves. "So get your ass out of this car and stay no more than two paces in front of me. In anyone asks: I'm your buddie from lab school - or wherever the fuck it is you guys learn your tricks – and you're just showing me around."

We walked into the hospital and on towards the newly built research wing. No one even raise a fucking eyebrow when the little man brought in a complete stranger. God I love this place!

"So this is where I work," the idiot said, fidgeting about with his lab coat.

I had chosen my stage well. The whole place was deserted, most of the lab technicians had gone home for the night. The empty flasks and long deserted tables made the place seem almost sinister.

Perfect for crime.

"Like I give a shit," I chuckled. "Now show me where the Infectious Diseases Lab is."

It wasn't like I didn't already know the lab was just a few doors down the hall. In fact, I could probably give the little man a few pointers on how to get from point A to point B since I had memorized the entire floor plan of the hospital. I just had to take certain…..precautions to prevent the little dipshit in front of me from growing a brain and a pair of balls and alerting security.

"Follow me," he muttered, shooting anxious looks from me to the door.

"Forget about it," I growled. "Don't think I don't know at least twenty ways of killing you without alerting security." I didn't really. In fact I don't think even I knew five but the little idiot didn't need to know that.

I pulled the surgical mask in front of my face again before entering the hallway again. Not that I'd really need it but if one of those goons they called security guards actually decided to do his job and look at the security screen in stead of the game the only thing he'd see was an anonymous masked lab technician and the little idiot.

"H-here," the idiot said.

"Open the door."

He used his pass to get inside and fidgeted about nervously near the doorway as I surveyed the room.

"Where do they keep the samples?"

The idiot's eyes grew huge as he realized what I must be after. He pointed towards a door at the end of the lab. I recognized it from the floor plans. It lead to a little room that held the cryovessels.

"Do you keep some kind of record of what's in there?"

"I-I know t-t-there's s-some kind of c-c-computer program," he stammered. I probably would have felt sorry for him if I wasn't such a fucked up son of a bitch.

"Do you know how to use it?"

He shook his head frantically.

"Well, then I'd just have to figure it all out on myself." I really should have gone with someone smarter. But, then again, how many lab technicians were there that didn't have any kind of private life whatsoever?

Surprisingly enough not that many.

From there on it was remarkably easy. The little idiot was all too happy to give me his user name and passwords after a little gentle – or not so gentle - persuasion and – much to my surprise – the door to the cryovessels was unlocked.

I walked in, grabbed a pair of special mittens and opened the right vessel. After a cloud of white smoke had lifted somewhat I peeked into the freezing cold storage unit.

"Let's just see….." I muttered to myself, scanning the four towers of vials inside. It took some time to figure things out but finally I got what I wanted.

Amazing how something so small would hold my ticket to fame, fortune and revenge. I mean, for something that would be causing total bedlam and devastation these little breakable vials seemed rather unimpressive. Still, it was what I wanted. I quickly put them in the cooler I had brought with me before closing the lid.

As proud as I was of my big master plan it was pure luck that made me stumble on the key to it.

Pure luck and all of the things that son of a bitch doctor Whitlock had told me.

Who knew that ten years afterwards I would be giving his offspring a taste of their own medicine?

Literally.

It would teach them not to stand in my way.

Nobody stands in my way.

No force on earth could stop me now.

Not even Rachel Lee - or Alice Brandon as she called herself now – and her two little friends.

All of them would soon be finding out what it was like to be on the receiving end of my anger.

The sound of the pathetic little loser shifting nervously in his space by the door pulled me out of my thoughts.

Focus James. You have other fish to fry before you get to the grand finale. It's no use to mess up ten years of work just to go off on a daydream.

"Let's go," I spat at him, closing everything back up and removing the gloves from my hand. Before we exited the lab I looked around. Nothing seemed to have been disturbed.

Good.

"Now where do you think you're going?" The idiot was moving towards the end of the hallway where the elevators where located.

"I thought we were done," he whined.

"Idiot." Seriously. At this point I was thinking I was doing the world a favor by killing this piece of crap. God forbid _that_ ever polluted the gene pool by breeding. "You're going to take me to wherever it is you keep your drug supply."

"But…."

"What?"

"We can't go there. There's _people_ in there!"

"Then you're just going to have to think of something to distract them while I get what I want. You wouldn't want me to go on a killing spree now would you?"

"N-n-no." Loser. Did he really think I was just going to go on a killing spree in a hospital pharmacy? I'd end up in a holding cell at Forks Police Headquarters within the hour.

"Then what do I do?"

"I'm sure you can think of something. I don't know…..piss your pants again, try working your charms – if you have any – on someone….." Did I really have to do everything here?

The loser turned out to be pretty good at distracting people with his loser ways and I was able to get the stuff I needed in no time.

Thanks to a little recon operation by one of my girls I knew where everything was located. Poor apothecary never knew what hit him once he'd seen my Vicky coming through the door. She had him lying on his back begging her to fuck him in eight seconds flat and was able to get a good look around while she was at it as well.

"Are you going to let me go now?" the little man asked.

"Sure." No need to ruin his puny little life too soon. We were back in his car now and if he pissed his pants again it would make the trip to our next stop rather unpleasant. "Let me say what we're going to do."

He looked at me like he was ready to start taking notes.

"We're going to drive out to the woods where I leave you and your car in a clearing. Once I'm gone you're going to count backwards from one thousand before you leave. Got that?"

He shook his head so fast I was almost afraid he'd break his neck. Not that I'd be sad to get rid of him but it would mess up my plans. Sure, I needed him dead, but if I was going to keep the Volturi happy his death needed to happen in a way that implicated their archenemies.

It had been so simple to remain under the radar.

Almost too simple.

Who knew that in the town where all of my targets were going to be assembling within the next few weeks there was also a great turf war going on over who ruled the city? The Volturi, a mobster family that had ruled the town for almost a century had been threatened in their position by a bunch of little upstarts known as The Pack.

Of course as soon as I found out I offered my services in helping the Volturi get rid of their little problem, for a nice fee and some even nicer protection of course.

But that kind of shit goes without saying.

I didn't really need the money – I had my own ways of getting some – but being protected by a man that was seen as untouchable had it's perks, even if it meant getting my hands dirty. I don't know how the Volturi managed to get into the position they were in now but they sure as hell had my respect. I swear, that Aro Volturi guy could walk into a police station with a toddler on his dick and still all the cops would ask was if he wanted milk in his coffee.

They were not to be taken lightly but in the end they had been blinded by their greed for domination and easy to fool.

"Turn left here," I barked at the little shit who was still sitting next to me, shaking like a leaf.

"T-t-there isn't a road."

"What use is a four wheel drive if all you're going to so is cruise around over perfectly smooth roads?"

"O-o-oh. Okay."

"Park the car. We're here." I ordered as soon as we had reached the clearing.

"So when do I start counting?" he asked, eager to see the back of me. I couldn't blame him.

"Now," I said.

"Thank you for letting me live," he said and the gratitude in his eyes almost made me feel like a son of a bitch for killing him anyway. I had to remind myself to keep my eye on the price.

I was probably doing him a favor anyway. In a couple of weeks – days maybe – everyone in this pathetic little town would be dead anyway. Why be another nameless figure in a news bulletin when your name could reach the headlines as being the first one to be killed by the great criminal mastermind? The one that had made the rest of it possible? It would probably be the only opportunity for the little dipshit to ever reach the headlines. Too bad for him he had to be dead to do so….

"No thanks needed," I shrugged, reaching behind me to pull my hunting knife out of it's sheath. "Now close your eyes and start counting and if you ever breath a word of all this to the police or even your auntie Margery I'll kill you."

He nodded and squeezed his eyes shut as if to prove to me he wasn't going to peek. Luckily for me – and for him, come to think of it – he didn't cover his face with his hands. It would have made it much more difficult to strike.

With a quick slash I severed both his carotid artery and his windpipe and watched as the life drained out of him quickly and relentlessly.

It was clean cut in more ways than one. Not only did the poor little bugger never know what hit him, the whole thing happened with an almost awe inspiring grace and dignity and in reverent silence.

I felt more than a little peeved about the fact that someone else would be getting the credit for this thing of beauty. It was my work, the canvas on which I had made my mark. I would like to see if those little upstarts from The Pack would have been able to pull of such a masterpiece.

I was the fucking Rembrandt of throat slashing.

As the blood seeped out my victims neck I quickly wiped all traces of me out of the car. Not that there was much for me to do anyway. I had been careful to wear gloves and a beanie while I was in the car but – as my whore of a mother always said – it's better to be safe than sorry.

I took one last look at the clearing before I walked into the woods, pulling out my phone.

The hunter had struck again.

"Volterra investments, how may I help you?" a sickly sweet voice sounded through the receiver.

"Put me through to Mr. Volturi please."

She didn't even ask me who 'me' was. She probably knew, being the receptionist of the godfather of Forks, what was going on in the woods right now anyway. God I love working with proper villains for a change.

"Yes?" a deep booming voice asked.

"It's done."

"Good. Your….reward will be wired over to you as soon as we have proof it went according to plan."

"And the other thing."

"It will be taken care of."

"Are you sure none of the cops in this two horse town is going to grow a brain and start asking around?"

"Believe me," Aro sounded a little peeved at my suggestion. "I have it all under control. You have nothing to fear my friend." He broke the connection after that.

"You're right," I chuckled to myself. "I don't have anything to fear. _You_ on the other hand……."

"What took you so long," a whiny voice sounded from the car that was waiting for me by the side of the road.

"Perfection takes time," I growled as I slid into the passenger seat. I swear that bitch would have ended up in a ditch somewhere weeks ago if I didn't need her for part of my plan. I had regretted taking her on as one of my….assistants almost as soon as I had asked her.

"Will you come to my house after you're done?" she lisped in what was probably supposed to be her seductive tone. "My parents are out tonight and my brother wouldn't recognize good sex when it happened right in front of him."

"I'll be gone for the night," I barked. She couldn't very well expect me to fuck her every night. God that girl was clueless. I had two other girls to please and a very complex and demanding scheme to pull off. "And by the way. I thought you had a boyfriend. Why don't you ask him to do the honors?"

"I think he's going to dump me," she whined.

I was quite sure he would. Not only was the precious little princes whining like a toddler, she was also a lousy lay. I couldn't imagine anyone seeking the company of that if not absolutely necessary.

"Well, then you'd just have to convince him otherwise, don't you," I preached. "Why don't you call him and offer to fuck his brains out. Men like that kind of shit."

Thank God we reached the house of the poor dead little motherfucker or I would have committed my second crime for the night.

"Do you need any help unloading your truck?" she purred, trailing her arm over the inside of my thigh.

Gross.

"Thank but I'll manage." I hopped out of the car, wanting to put as much space between me and Prostitute Barbie as possible.

"Call me if you need me," she shrugged, before winking at me and pulling out of the driveway.

I walked to the backyard where my car was parked and began unloading the equipment. Part of the scheme – the part the Volturi had been most insistent about – was framing The Pack and to do that convincingly little Tyler Crowley needed to become a criminal.

I quickly went to work, bringing my equipment into the house and grabbing a few things I needed for my own little side scheme. I didn't believe my luck when I stumbled upon the little present in the guest bedroom. Who knew Mr. Crowley had been such a model employee that he had turned his own bedroom into a little laboratory to keep working after hours?

I could have ordered all this shit on the Internet but you never know they might be able to trace it back to me. This was just a little unexpected bonus and it also provided me with a perfect way to sully the little twerps reputation.

I quickly transferred the place from an innocent looking home project into a meth lab by bringing in a few things my girls had picked up for me.

After I was done I left the whole place to blow up and waited in my car for the big moment to arrive. Any minute now and the first crescendo of my magnum opus would blow up into the night.

When the explosion thundered through the sky the whole street was soon filled with people, watching from a little distance how the once nice and inconspicuous house slowly crumbled to pieces.

I pulled out my phone again. Time for the second act to commence. I flicked through my contacts until I reached the number that said 'Victoria'. She picked up on the second ring.

"Hello?" she purred. Now that was a woman who could make a mad come just by saying 'hello'.

"It's done." I smiled. "Time to do your bit."

"Any problems?"

"What?" I said. "Did you expect me to fuck up or something?" Only my one true girl could talk to me like that and get away with it.

"Not you," she spat. "The whore."

"Are you jealous?" I chuckled.

"Perhaps," she snarled, not liking the fact that I had uncovered her little secret.

"Then you're just going to have to convince me you're better than them."

"Why don't you come home and let me?"

"Not before you call your former employer. Remember? You've got a job to do."

"I'm a woman," she giggled. "It's all about the multitasking."

"Somehow that does nothing for my ego," I chuckled.

"Like you need any help inflating it anyway." I could almost hear her rolling her eyes at me through the line.

"Gotta go," I said, watching the emergency services tear into the street with a huge display of flashing lights and blaring sirens. Show offs! "Give 'em hell baby."

"Don't worry about it," she replied. "I have a little score of my own to settle with Carlisle and his precious little angels."

I watched the firefighters enter the building to try and put out the fire though there wasn't much they could do, the whole place had gone up in smoke already.

There would be no proof of my involvement.

No clue to what was awaiting the good people of Forks.

As I sat back and watched my plan unfold I couldn't help but allow a smug smile to creep onto my face as I sat back and lit up a nice Cuban sugar to celebrate my first little victory.

I love it when a plan comes together.

* * *

_**OK. So I hope I didn't scare you off with this chapter. It's vile but it's kind of necessary. There won't be much of James' POV in this story but I needed this chapter to build up the main crime plot.**_

_**So we've established Victoria is evil and she's working with James. Any guesses on who the other female accomplice is?**_

**_For the real movie buff: yes, I used the last name of a Bond villain as James' last name but it doesn't have any bearings on the plot or the crime he is going to commit. Does anyone know what Bond movie had a badguy who's last name was 'Midnight'?_**

_**I actually got some help from my mom when I was writing this chapter. She works as a computer programmer at a hospital and she actually made the computer program James uses to find the vials he needed. I used her knowhow to try to stay as close to the truth as I could. Some thing, however, I had to guess at. I hope I didn't make any blatant errors.**_

_**The next chapter will be in the POV of Agent Masen (yes, Edward). It will be called 'Electric Feel' and it will shed some light on whether James was able to pull off the perfect crime and what exactly it was that he stole from the hospital.**_

**_I will be posting my JasperXRosalie oneshot on Friday (weid coupling I know but somehow it works believe it or not. It's what happens when you write fanfiction while watching 'The Horse Whisperer'). If all goes according to plan I'll be able to update this story twice a week starting next Monday. This one will fill the gap the completion of My Mistakes were made for you left (snif). Updates will happen on Monday and Friday provided I have enough time to write/edit. _**


	5. Electric Feel

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

* * *

**Electric Feel**

_**(Edward Masen)**_

How did I land myself into this mess again? Let me think.....

Oh yeah, the best part of a bottle of Jack to chase down a crap day at work had found me in some quiet hallway of the station kissing the life out of Eleazar Denali's barely legal daughter before taking her home with me.

They say God punishes a man for his sins immediately and I have to agree with that. Not only did I have to live with the guilt of taking advantage of an innocent young girl like that, she also turned out to be every man's nightmare of clingy girls come to life.

Ever since that faithful night she had bombarded me with phone calls, e-mails and whatnot and even though I had never returned or replied any of them she still kept on going. This whole thing had been going on for almost a year now and I was beginning to despair.

I knew I should have told her it was all a big mistake, that – if I had been sober – I would never have stuck my tongue down the prissy little princess throat, let alone my penis, not even for a million dollars. But I couldn't

My mother had raised a better son than that. I couldn't willfully hurt the girl's feelings, not when it had been me that had caused them to arise in the first place.

So I tried to ease her into the realization the feelings weren't mutual but somehow my not returning her phone calls and e-mails only seemed to make her more persistent. Not even the distance between Seattle and Forks, the place her family had moved to after her father had taken a job as the head of the local detective squad after his predecessor became Chief of Police after some kind of scandal involving the old chief.

And now I was going to spend God knows how much time in the same place she had moved to, working side by side with her dad no less.

Apparently the usually blissfully obscure town of Forks had attracted the attention of some kind of terrorist and the local detectives felt like they were in over their heads. Eleazar had called my field operative director to ask him for FBI back up, something that didn't happen very often.

Usually whenever we got wind of something interesting going down be barged right in and took over, much to the chagrin of the local detectives.

I guess it paid to have an ex-colleague in the know. Or not.

Since this case was ridiculous.

Turning off the highway I cold just make out the skyline of Forks, a largish city that never reached the headlined unless it was to announce that yet another record in the amount of water that could fall from the heavens on one place had been measured within it's soggy city limits.

When we cruised through the suburbs I could see how a father was ushering his kids into a run down Suburban, protecting their heads with his jacket.

I had always figured myself to be that kind of guy. The kind that would find the woman of his dreams, marry her, settle down and live the rest of his life in the pleasant bliss of suburbia.

I had never, not even in the blackest moment of my life imagined myself capable of being this guy. This monster.

Perhaps this was what spending your days tracking down the bastards of this world would make you become in the end. Perhaps it was inevitable that you'd become a bastard yourself. Perhaps it had just been that I had had a really lousy day.....

I loved my work – really – even though sometimes, after a day of finding some poor innocent family murdered in their home or being shot at, it was a hard job to love. It suited me and it was all I had ever known.

I had been scouted straight out of college, my perfect academic and athletic records being every operative director's wet dream. My mom and dad hadn't liked my choice at first. My dad had wanted to see me established as some posh doctor or lawyer, anything that would enable him to brag to his friends at the club about. Having a son who shoveled shit for the federal government apparently wasn't smart enough for him.

My mother''s doubts about my chosen profession were different from my dad's. She worried about what the job would do to me. Even now, after having worked for the FBI for almost seven years not a day would pass in which she wouldn't call me to ask if I was okay.

After I had completed my training at Quantico I had moved to Seattle to work for the Washington office of the FBI, where I had been partnered up with agent Eleazar Denali, a seasoned FBI employee who learned me everything I needed to know about fighting crime in the real world.

For six years we had made a good team, even in spite of our differences. I knew I had a reputation withing the bureau of being hard to work with. We had both been driven, unable to give up until we had solved the case, and even though Eleazar had a little less respect for the rules than I had we had always been able to find some kind of middle ground.

I respected Eleazar, not only because he was a damn good agent, but also because he had been able to balance the job with a steady private life. His wife and children were regular features at the station and over the years I had watched Tanya grow from a sweet, if not a little shy, girl into a flirtatious, almost slutty, young woman.

Eleazar had confided in me that part of his motivation for moving to Forks was so that Tanya would get a fresh start in a new town and perhaps would find better friends here. He had been very disappointed when she had refused to go to college, instead focusing her attention on hanging out with her friends and lagging about the house.

The fact that I had taken advantage of the girl, knowing all of this, had made it even worse.

After he had left they had teamed me up with a whole string of complete morons, one even worse than the other. If I would have gotten a dollar for every time I had nearly died or fucked up a case in the last year because of someone else's incompetence I would have made a nice little earning out of it.

In the end most of them had only lasted a week before they had asked our chief to be assigned to another partner.

At least Garrett was a decent agent, even though his behavior was obnoxious. I still didn't know if his ability to put up with me came from the fact that he was an okay guy and a good investigator or because of his ability to just let everything glide off him like teflon.

He was a rookie, straight out of Quantico, when we had been partnered up about three months ago. When I first saw him, a cocky bastard with a perpetual stupid grin on his face, I had feared the worst but apart from the fact that he still seemed to think being an agent meant you had to channel a lot of James Bond and Jason Bourne, he wasn't so bad.

We pulled up in front of Forks' main police station, a large brick brick building in the center of town. A receptionist took us up to the first floor – where the detective squad resided – after scowling at us for a few moments first.

Nothing out of the ordinary.

Being a federal agent meant that you had to get used to just about everyone you met -a apart from your colleagues and your family – hating you. Criminals hated you because you came to arrest them or stop their plans, police officers hated you because they had to hand their case – mostly a very high profile case they hoped would earn them a nice little promotion- over to you and most of the citizens you met treated you with a mixture of gratitude and hate because they were in a fucked up situation if they needed your help.

"Ah! Masen, Scully! You're here!" Eleazar called, standing up from behind his desk. I could see immediately that quiet life suited him. His face was much more relaxed and he had gained a couple of pounds, no doubt from sitting behind his desk more than being in the field. "Sit!" he pointed towards a couple of chairs on the other side of his desk.

"Nice set up you've got here man!" Garrett praised, looking around him.

"It's not the Trump Tower but it suits me fine," Eleazar grinned. "So what did your field director tell you about this case?"

"Not much," I replied. "From what he told us I gather some local drug manufacturer was found murdered in a forest clearing?"

"Come on Masen!" Eleazar laughed. "I know you better than that. Knowing Gibbs he probably thought the damp had affected my ability to think or something."

"Pretty much," Garrett snorted. Gibbs had made it pretty obvious he had only send us here because things were slow at the Seattle office and because he wanted to do his former agent a favor, not because he believed for even a single second the threat Eleazar had spoken about was for real.

"I can't blame him," Eleazar shrugged. "If it were me I'd probably do the same."

"The how come we're here?" I asked.

"I have a gut feeling something is....I don't know....off about this case." Eleazar started. I leaned towards him. My five years of experience of going on operations with Eleazar had taught me never to underestimate Eleazar's gut feelings. They had gotten me out of trouble more times than I'd like to remember.

"From the first time we stumbled upon that crime scene I knew there was something not right about it. It just seemed too....perfect," he explained. "The Pack are known for dealing with their enemies in a pretty radical and final way and the victim was killed with a single slash through the throat – the way all enemies of The Pack usually end up – but the whole crime scene looked too styled....too neat."

"Did you find any evidence?" Garrett asked. I could tell the case had drawn his attention.

"None," Eleazar sighed. "At least not on the crime scene."

"What do you mean?" I asked, getting a little annoyed with the slow pace of explaining. Eleazar had always been one to drag a good story out to it's maximum potential.

"One of my detectives did a little background check on the victim and found out that only moments before he was killed and abandoned in the meadow Mr Crowley used his key card to get into the laboratory for Infectious Diseases."

"Perhaps he needed some equipment from the lab?" Garrett suggested. "The case file said he ran a meth lab from his spare bedroom."

"If that was all there was to it I would gladly support that conclusion," Eleazar nodded, brushing his hand along his chin. "The fact is, however, it wasn't just some piece of equipment they stole. They stole a virus."

"A virus?" the way we asked the same question in unison had garrett and me sounding like a bunch of toddlers in Kindergarten.

"What the hell did he want with that?" Garrett snorted.

"What kind of virus?" I asked. I knew most hospitals kept tissue samples infected with some of the best known diseases for research purposes. Most of them had only those samples that couldn't do a whole lot of damage of some mishap caused them to get airborne. I happened to know, however, that Forks General Hospital had received some big donations in the past, allowing them to built a new research wing and embark on some cutting edge research projects. Something told me Eleazar wasn't just talking about any old virus.

"According to the data supplied by the lab he stole four vials containing samples of the Influenza A virus strain, subtype H1N1better known as the virus that created the Spanish Influenza pandemic."

I let out a small gust of breath. During my time at college I had taken an interest in medicine apart from the pre-law courses I had taken on therefore I knew the effects of the virus stolen from Forks General Hospital.

"I still don't see why the FBI needs to be involved in all of this," Garrett asked. "So what if a lot of people get sick for a couple of days. Sure, it would be tough and supermarkets would see a rush in their OJ sales but what's all the fuss about?"

"The Spanish Influenza wasn't just any old flu virus," I explained. "For one, it killed somewhere between 20 and 100 million people worldwide."

"Oh."

"Secondly, because no one was ever able to develop an actual cure for it."

"What harm could they do with those samples?" Garrett asked.

"With those four? Not much," Eleazar replied. "Most people alive today are descendants from those who were resilient to the virus when it struck and if a single person – or even a couple of people – got sick they could easily be quarantined and the virus would be prevented from spreading further. But if those samples fell into the wrong hands they could be lethal."

"You mean that if some mad scientist got their hands on it and tweaked it?" I asked.

"It's my greatest fear," Eleazar sighed. "And I have every reason to believe it might become reality."

"Do you have any evidence to support that fear?" I knew that, even though Eleazar had made a strong case we would be needing evidence if we were to proceed with it. I had done a few cases like this before and most of them turned out to be a lot of fuzzing over nothing. In ninety nine percent of the cases someone had just used the samples and forgotten to report it or they had just been misplaced.

"Take a look at this boys," Eleazar said, pointing at his computer screen. "And tell me what you think." He pushed a button and a movie started playing. From what I could see it was the surveillance tape of one of the hospitals security camera's.

"This is the victim." Eleazar pointed to a nervous looking man who had just walked into view of the camera.

"Who is that?" Garrett asked, pointing at a man walking a few steps behind the victim.

"We don't know," Eleazar said, leaning back in his chair. "He keeps his mask on all the time and he never looks directly at the camera. It's like he knows exactly where they are."

We watched the two of them go into the laboratory and emerge a couple of minutes later. The masked man seemed to be holding something, a small bag or a similar object. "Do you have any footage of them inside the lab?"

"Unfortunately not," Eleazar said. "This is all there is."

"He didn't accidentally leave any prints behind, did he?" Garrett asked hopefully.

"Do you really think someone would go to all this trouble of remaining anonymous only to take of his gloves and leave a nice fingerprint for Forks finest?" Eleazar chuckled.

"I guess not," Garrett mumbled.

"This still doesn't prove the vials were stolen then," I said, Sure, it was probable but I knew how little 'probable' meant in court.

"Actually," Eleazar said with a tinge of humor in his eyes. "Forks general hospital keeps excellent records of the contents of it's cryovessels. They have a computer program that registers what's inside the vessels, who has used them last and what has happened when they were used. Their data shows that all four of the vials were present when they checked the contents of the vessels last Friday."

"So you think we have a terrorist at large?"

"I do."

We all looked at each other. As improbable as it may seem that a terrorist would have chosen a generally quiet and obscure place like Forks Washington for his attack, the evidence in this case didn't lie and it couldn't be overlooked.

"Then why hasn't anyone raised a red flag over this case before?" Garret asked.

Eleazar sagged back into his chair as looked out of the window. "Because the new chief of police didn't want any outsiders involved," he sighed. "The hospital has been very careful to keep the theft under wraps because the ease with which the vials have been stolen is kind of embarrassing and might get them into trouble. I guess money and power talk over here."

"Are you saying your chief of police is bent?" I asked.

"I'm saying the chief has nothing but the wellbeing of the chief on the brain," Eleazar replied cryptically. "I only managed to get you guys involved after I had threatened to go to the media. If this operation goes south then so does my job.

"Then we'd best get to work," I said, standing up.

"Great," Eleazar seemed relieved that we believed him. I couldn't blame him. Even after seeing the evidence it all seemed so surreal and improbable. It would probably just turn out to be some sick kind of joke.

"So is there anything else we need to know?" Garrett asked, his grin back in place.

"Nah," Eleazar shook his head. "The rest you'll find out as you go." He reached over to his phone. "Just wait a second while I phone detective Mulder. She was working on the case before we called for back and and she'll be briefing you on everything you need to know and show you around the case files."

"She?" Garrett's eyes began to sparkle at the mention of a female detective. The guy really had a one track mind.

"Forget about it Scully!" Eleazar chuckled. "She's not the kind of girl to be taken lightly."

"All the better!"

"Your funeral," Eleazar shrugged as he turned his attention back to the phone to call whoever this detective Mulder was and ask her to come meet us.

"So they are here?" A woman spoke, walking into the little office.

I could barely hold back my laughter as I looked at Garrett, his eyes wide and his mouth slightly open as he gaped at her unabashedly. She looked back at him, her brows arched with a mix of curiosity and amusement, obviously expecting him to do the decent thing and introduce himself.

In the end she must have concluded that no intelligent combination of words would be leaving Garrett's lips any time soon because she shot him one last ball crushing glare before turning back to Eleazar.

"Yes," Eleazar chuckled, looking at the scene unfolding in front of him. "Mulder, these are agent Masen and agent Scully from the Bureau." He pointed from me to Garrett, indicating who was who. "They are taking over the Crowley case. Agent Masen especially has some experience dealing with terrorist threats in the past." He cleared his throat before he continued. "Edward, Garrett, this is Kate Mulder, one of our must talented detectives."

"So these are the big FBI hotshots that are going to solve the case?" she snorted, still glaring at Garrett who was still working very hard to keep himself from drooling. "They don't look all that smart to me." She shifted her gaze towards me, her upper lip curling up in a slight smile. "No offense of course."

"None taken," I chuckled. I liked this girl!

"If you'd like to follow me,"she waved to the large open office space that stretched out outside Eleazars little room.

"I'll follow you everywhere darlin'," Garrett sang in his best rendition of a southern drawl. He must have come to his senses again though unfortunately for him Kate wasn't the least bit impressed.

"Right," she sighed, rolling her eyes at him, before tuning on her heals and marching out if the office with Garrett trailing behind her like a puppy.

"Keep an eye on him Masen," Eleazar laughed. "I wouldn't want to have to explain to Gibbs how one of his agents ended up in hospital."

"Will do," I chuckled before following Mulder and Scully into the main office space.

I could see detective Mulder standing in the middle of the room. She must have been talking to one of her colleagues or something because she was temporarily distracted and therefore didn't pay attention to Garrett who was standing right behind her. When she turned back she stumbled against him and would have fallen if Garrett's hands wouldn't have come up instantly to help her regain her balance.

"Thanks!" I could hear her smile at him. "I would have made a total ass out of myself if you hadn't been in the right spot at the right time."

"Don't mention it," Garrett beamed, looking like a man who had just won the lottery.

I smirked, knowing that things like these always made Garrett overconfident. It wouldn't be long now before he did something that would completely ruin every progress he had made with the girl.

And yes, before even a minute had passed that moment was upon us.

When detective Mulder turned around again to proceed towards her desk Garrett couldn't help brushing his hands over the swell of her ass.

Idiot.

She spun round like she had been stung by a bee, reached into her holster. I couldn't see what kind of weapon it was that she pulled out – things were going way too fast – but judging by the fact that one moment Garrett was looking up at her in a stunned kind of surprise and the next he was writhing in pain on the ground I gathered that she had probably Tasered him.

"What did you do that for woman!" Garrett yelled, one hand clutching his sore ass and one rubbing over the spot where the Taser had made contact. "Is that the thanks I'm getting for saving a girl from falling?"

"No you idiot," she fumed at him. "That's what you get for groping a girl when she has made it perfectly clear what she thinks of you."

"Come on honey." I had to admire Garrett's guts for keeping his pursuit up even though she was standing over him, holding a weapon. He must really be smitten with the girl. "You know you liked it!" He tried to grab her ankle but she moved out of reach before he could succeed.

"Hands off Casanova," she barked at him, waving her Taser in front of his face. "Or you'll find yourself in another meeting with Mr. Prickly." She put the stun gun back into its holster. "And remember, next time I wont put it in 'drive stun'. "

"Bring it on honey," Garrett challenged her, leaping back to his feet. "I'm ready to be stunned."

"Ass," the detective growled, walking back to what I presumed was her desk.

The rest of the briefing passed without further incident. Garrett was still nursing the sore spot that Mulder's defense had caused and the detective wisely chose to ignore him, focusing her attention mostly on me or the case files.

Eleazar wasn't joking when he had said she was good at her job. She had managed to build up a good case, supporting the theory Eleazar had explained to us earlier. Someone must have stolen the vials from the hospital and used the murder of Tyler Crowley to avert attention from the theft and to a gang of drug dealers.

"Edward," I hadn't noticed Eleazar standing in the doorway to his office before he spoke. "Can I speak with you for a moment before you leave?'

I sighed, knowing he probably wanted to speak to me about his daughter.

"Good luck buddie," Garrett whispered, patting my back as I walked past him.

"Close the door please," Eleazar said, pointing at the door I had just passed on my way in.

"Do you know why you are here?" he asked. I felt like a teen aged boy being called into the principals office.

"Does it have something to do with Tanya?" I figured I might as well get this over fast.

"Yes," Eleazar said, scrutinizing my face. All traces of friendliness where gone. Right now he was just a father protecting the virtue of his child. "Do you mind explaining to me what went on between the two of you?"

"Well.....I-I......kind of...." How the hell do you explain to your friend and former colleague that one night, one black night, you took advantage of his only daughter only to throw her out again like a cheep hooker the next day after you had sobered up?

"From what Tanya told me the two of you were going out," Eleazar mused, his gaze scrutinizing my reaction. "But I've always found that that involved two people and I get the feeling you've been....absent?"

I shuffled in my place and looked at my feet. I didn't want to see Eleazar's face when I told him the truth. "W-well...........Oh to hell with it!" I was starting to get annoyed by my own fears. I was a special agent in government service for crying out loud! Why couldn't I just go balls out and tell him I wasn't interested in dating the girl? "The truth is......Tanya and I had......a thing....That is to say......You remember that night when you had your farewell party?"

Eleazar nodded impatiently, urging me to get on with it.

"You remember the day I had? How my new partner almost got me killed?" I shuddered at the memory. The first idiot they had teamed me up with after Eleazar had announced his departure had actually had the nerve to run in the middle of a gunfight, leaving me to fend for myself. I had been amazingly lucky to get out alive, more than I could say for the two innocent bystanders who had been caught in the middle.

"Yes?" It was obvious from his glare that Eleazar was starting to see where this was going. We'd all been there, though I had hoped I would never come to it. My mother had raised me better than to drown my sorrow and frustration in sedatives or women. Hell, I knew better than to do that.

"Well....." I took a deep breath. "I stumbled onto Tanya, just when I was getting ready to leave and ........well......one thing lead to another...." I looked at him, pleading silently for him not to let me explain what happened next.

"So you're saying you took advantage of my little girl?"

I nodded, hanging my head in shame. I felt so sordid. I had been feeling like this ever since the morning I woke up next to Tanya Denali. If I could ever go back in time and fix this I would but right now I deserved any punishment – verbal or physical – Eleazar would pick for me.

"Dammit Masen!" Eleazar banged his fist on the top of his solid oak desk. "I thought we were friends!"

"We were...are," I muttered.

"Friends don't go around screwing their friends daughters behind their backs!" Eleazar yelled.

I didn't care if the whole police station could hear him by now. I deserved to be publicly disgraced for this. "I'm so sorry...." I stammered.

"Well, you should be," Eleazar growled, taking a deep breath before continuing in a more subdued tone. "I can't just forget this Edward."

"I don't expect you to," I whispered.

"And you have to go set my girl straight," he warned. "She thinks you're her boyfriend."

"Of course." I tried to bite back a groan. Convincing Tanya of the fact that there had never been anything between us except for a one night stand would not be easy.

Eleazar sighed. "I know Tanya can be a bit....demanding sometimes."

I looked up in wonder. I had never heard him speak like that about his daughter and I sure hadn't expected him to start now.

"She's been raised in a very protective environment. I always wanted to keep her safe, you know?" he looked at me for confirmation. "Looking back I realize that the thing I should have done was take off the training wheels and let her know what the real world was all about."

"You did what you though was right." I offered.

"Yeah....well....look how that turned out!" he snorted. "I'm not a blind man Edward. I've seen what my little girl has turned into....and I don't like it. The worst thing is that I caused her to be like this."

I shifted uncomfortably. I knew that whatever I was going to say would have to be phrased very carefully. I had definitely not expected the conversation to turn out like this.

"Anyway...." Eleazar seemed to be every inch as uncomfortable as I was. "I'll let you get back to the case.....before detective Mulder kills your new partner. Keep me posted on your progress."

For a moment I was confused. Did he mean my progress in dumping his daughter or my progress on the case?

The speed with which he dismissed me settled it.

Definitely the case.

"Okay lover boy, are you done ogling detective Mulder?" I asked Garrett as I exited the office.

"Depends on whether you're done getting yelled at by the chief for screwing his baby girl," Garrett chided, following me to the stairs.

We checked into our hotel and took a quick break to get settled in before meeting again in the lobby after an hour or so. As soon as I had dragged my suitcase into my room and checked to see if everything was in order I had called the hospital to see if there was anyone who could take us to see the cadaver and shed some more light on the disappearance of the vials.

After a little gentle persuasion the person I had spoken to on the phone, the medical examiner who had done the autopsy on the body of Tyler Crowley, promised to meet us at the path lab at four o clock sharp. From our conversation I kind of got the impression she wasn't a people's person, well, at least not a living people's person....

"What are you laughing about?" Garrett asked as we drove over to the hospital.

"Oh, just the fact that this ME we're meeting is so much like all of the other ones I've met."

"They are a bit loopy aren't they?" Garrett chuckled.

He was right. I had yet to meet a pathologist who was completely normal. Somehow being around dead people all day seemed to be making people a little strange.

We parked at the hospital, a large, modern building with huge windows covering almost all of the front facade and made our way through the main plaza. I had a feeling this hospital must be one of the richest in the state, if not the country. Everywhere you looked there were new, crisp and clean surfaces and in stead of looking oppressive and stuffy this place actually looked light an airy. There was, however, no amount of modern decoration that could expel the nasty smell of hospital though.

We took a elevator downstairs and followed the signs to the morgue where a lovely receptionist handed us a pair of scrubs and gloves to keep us from contaminating their evidence before sending us in to meet the ME.

She was standing in front of a marble bier, probably preparing her next patient for examination while humming along to the music playing on her i-pod. Bon Jovi, from what I could hear.

When she noticed us her face turned into a scowl, her chagrin even more apparent as she pulled her earplugs out of her ears and walked towards us.

"Irina Ryan," she half growled, half spoke, shaking our hands as quickly as humanly possible without appearing impolite.

Odd combination of names.

"Mail order bride," Garrett whispered next to me.

"I heard that!" the doctor snarled, looking at him with an almost murderous expression.

"So you were the medical examiner who did the preliminary autopsy on Mr Crowley?" I asked, trying to change the subject. Even though Garrett was good at his job, his ability to offend every female in the room ten seconds after he had entered it annoyed me to no end.

"I've just wrapped up the full examination today," she barked, stalking over to a desk that was pushed into a corner of the lab. "Here." She all but threw the file at me.

"Thank you," I offered. "Could we see the remains of Mr. Crowley please?"

"I'll take you to him," she huffed, taking one last fleeting look at the dead body of a Caucasian male lying on the table, ready for examination. "You have five minutes."

She brought us back into the hallway to the cold room, the room where they kept the bodies of the dead people that had been brought into the morgue until they were released to their families. The moment we stepped into the room I felt why they called it the 'cold room', the place was freezing.

The room also reminded me of why people have nightmares about being here. Even though the place itself was neat and clean looking it had an eerie feel to it. That was probably down to the fact that I knew what was being kept behind the little doors in the wall we were facing.

Doctor Ryan didn't seemed fazed by it at all. She just marched forward, opened a door and pulled an iron plate holding a body bag out of it's storage, while motioning for us to come closer.

"The body is that of an African American male, approximately twenty five to thirty years old."

"Twenty eight, actually," Garrett interrupted her.

"I don't care," the doctor snarled. "I deduce, I don't write biographies. Now will you let me do my work?"

She shot both of us a death glare before continuing to give u the rundown on the murder victim. It was pretty clear what had killed him. The angry red slash that covered half his neck would have killed him almost imminently.

"It's a clean cut," the doctor concluded. "The blade you're looking for is about ten inches long, about a quarter of an inch thick and broad bladed."

"A Bowie knife?" I thought out loud.

"It's nice to see someone paid attention in class," she smiled. "And yes, I would say the victim met his end by a Bowie knife."

"That won't get us any nearer to the killer," I sighed. Knifes like that, though prohibited in some states, were pretty common, especially in a place like this, known for it's excellent fishing and hunting opportunities.

"Sorry," the doctor shrugged. "I can only tell you how he did it, not who did it."

That statement had me thinking. Working here, and from what I had seen she was one of the senior ME, she must have encountered previous victims of The Pack if they were as vicious as both Eleazar and detective Mulder had pictured them to be.

"So you don't think it was The Pack?" I asked, knowing I probably wasn't going to get a straight answer anyway.

I was right.

"As I said before.....they don't pay me to think. They pay me to uncover the facts and the facts are that this man was killed with a clear cut administered by a knife. What you do with that information isn't of my concern."

Garrett was staring to look a little greenish and I could see the good doctor enjoyed watching him change color.

"So here we have the poor guys brain," she continued after she had ushered us out of the cold room and back into the main path lab. She fished the brain out of an iron container that had been stored in a cold unit in the room.

"Great," Garrett squeaked, looking away. "How interesting."

"It's a pretty normal adult brain," the doctor shrugged, looking like she couldn't for the life of her understand how Garrett would think it interesting. "But that's kind of the point I was trying to make. _Everything_ about this guy is just about as normal as you can get!"

"It is?" I took a good look at the strange icky white colored mass in front of me. I had seen brains before but my medical knowledge wasn't such that I could tell one from another.

"You see...," she explained, her eyes twinkling as she placed the poor guys brain back into the container. "When someone handles substances like that on a regular bases, which, as you would agree with me, someone producing drugs in an amateur lab at home would, you would expect to find traces of the drug, or the ingredients for it, in the brain or blood stream or at least under his nails or on his skin....." She paused to see if we were still with her. "With this guy we got nada."

"Nothing?' Garrett asked.

"Zilch," she confirmed. "Not even the tiniest speck of something...and believe me, I've been over this guy with a fine-tooth comb."

"So you don't think the lab was his?" I asked.

"I'm not a detective. I leave the conclusions to you," she shrugged. "All I'm saying is that if this guy ran a meth lab from his spare bedroom then he sure as hell wasn't the one making the drugs."

"That confirms Eleazar's doubts," I mused.

"Eleazar is a good cop from what I've heard of it," doctor Ryan said. "He knows a set up when he sees it. So does our Katie."

"You know detective Mulder?" Garrett asked eagerly.

"She's my cousin," the doctor replied, a hint of humor in her eyes. "And no, I will not help you ask her out."

"Damn!" Garrett muttered under his breath before turning his attention to doctor Ryan. "Would you.....?" Even though he didn't finish his sentence it was quite clear what he was saying. I shook my head before shooting an apologetic smile at the doctor. Why couldn't they team me up with a guy who did his job in a decent way without thinking he was James fucking Bond?

"I prefer the dead," the doctor shrugged, returning to her work.

"Ew!" Garrett backed away from her like she had the plague and even I had to admit that whatever she had implied was pretty gross.

"Not like that you idiot," she laughed. "Jeez! Why do guys always have to think with their dicks? You're not my type anyway and even if you were.....I'm a little bit better than to enjoy my cousins sloppy seconds."

She seemed to be done talking for now, her attention refocused on the cadaver that was lying on the marble pathology table in front of her. The silent message was clear: it was nice talking to you but now you can piss off again.

"Doctor Ryan?" There was something about the body in the room next door that bugged me. Something I had missed. I only wished I knew what it was.

"What?" she spat. Boy, she was definitely done talking.

"Could I have another look at the body?"I asked her cautiously. "I think there's something about it I'm missing."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," she didn't even turn to look at me, just waving one hand dismissively instead. "You know your way around right? Help yourself."

Part of me wanted to tell her she was at least breaking ten hospital regulations and about a dozen state ones but it decided it was probably better for the case and not to forget my own health if I bit my tongue.

"You mind if I sit this one out?" Garrett asked.

"Not at all." I was actually relieved. I needed to be able to think If I was ever going to find out what it was that I had been missing. Being in there alone would certainly have it's advantages.

"Need anything from the vending machines?"

I shook my head before watching him turn the corner towards the elevators and the main plaza before I walked back to the cold chamber.

I was so wrapped up in my thoughts about the case that I didn't notice her at first.

A woman.

She was standing hunched over a corpse, her long brown hair shielding her face from sight.

"What are you doing here?" I demanded, reaching for my weapon.

She spun around on her feet and looked at me with a flustered doe-like expression.

For a moment I forgot everything I had been thinking about. The case. The dead body of Tyler Crowley. The fact that I had just interrupted someone standing over said dead body.

There was only her.

God she was beautiful.

The long brown hair I had noticed as soon as I spotted her had a softness and richness to it that made me want to touch it just to see how it would feel like to run my hands through it. Parts of it seemed red in the bright lights of the room, while other parts came close to black. The way it framed her face and flowed over her shoulders and chest in soft wavy tresses made it seem almost as if it was dancing around her.

Her skin was fair. Pale, without looking unhealthy, and flawless, though her cheeks were currently colored in a bright red due to the fact that she had been discovered doing something she shouldn't be doing. The rest of her frame was small and slim, yet I could see the stance and the toned body of a fighter.

Then there were her eyes. The deepest, largest chocolate eyes I had ever seen in my life. I had read somewhere that the eyes were the gatekeepers to the soul but I had never thought that phrase to be anything more than horribly clichéd, not until I saw the living proof of it that was standing right in front of me. It was like every feeling she had was reflected in them.

Fear.

Anger.

Curiosity.

Lust?

I shook my head, trying to shake the foggy haze of lust out of it because damn did I lust after this woman. It was like she had bewitched me.

"What are you doing here?" I repeated, finding my voice again. "And why are you standing over this guys body?"

"He's a relative?" she tried, though she wasn't the best liar in the world. The way her answer came out as a question betrayed her. That and the fact that the victim was African American and she was pale white.

"Right," I snorted, pointing at the face of Tyler Crowley.

"Gotta go," she said in a rushed voice, dashing towards me and the door behind me.

"You still haven't told me who you are and what you are doing here," I insisted, grabbing her arms as she tried to sneak past me.

The moment our bodies touched a strange spark coursed through my system. It was like a jolt of electricity only....nicer. It didn't hurt. In fact....it evoked quite the opposite reaction from pain: pleasure.....longing.

Of course I made the mistake of dropping her arm in shock, just staring at her like an idiot psycho maniac instead.

She made use of my reaction by running for the door. Before she disappeared through it, however, she turned and shot me a confused yet apologetic look.

"I'm sorry," she muttered, before running away from me.

I stared from the now empty door frame to the body of Tyler Crowley and back at the door frame.

That girl.

Who was she?

Where did she come from?

What was she doing here?

I wanted to see her again. Not just to interrogate her but just to be with her.

Talk to her.

Run my fingers through her hair as I looked into her eyes.

Kiss her.

Where the hell did that come from? I must have lost my mind. Here I was, interrupting an intruder as she was breaking and entering into a morgue, possibly contaminating evidence and all I could think about was how I wanted to kiss her? Whatever Garrett had must have been contagious.

I berated myself. This was bad. So bad it could possibly screw up my career.

She was bad.

No.

No?

I walked out of the cold room. It would be madness to think I would be getting any insights now. I couldn't help thinking about myself as I made my way back to the main plaza of the hospital, my brain frantically trying to come up with an explanation that would vindicate the beautiful brown-eyed girl.

"What happened to you Masen?" Garrett asked, arching one of his brows. "Got attacked by a stiff? Or that scary pathologist?"

"No?" My answer came out more like a question than a statement.

"So did you find out anything useful?"

"No," I replied. Well, apart from finding the perfect example of the female form and finding out she was probably on the wrong side of the law, my second visit to the cold room had been quite uneventful.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Garrett asked as we walked back to the car.

"I am," I growled, fishing my car keys out of my pocket. Why couldn't the guy just get the hint and leave me with my thoughts?

Just as I was sliding into the drivers seat I saw a group of women, a few yards away, walking towards their car. One of them was a statuesque blond of the kind you usually see on the runway though she looked like she could handle herself in a back alley as well though. The second one was the complete opposite. Tiny and jumpy like a jack rabbit. Her hair appeared to be as hyperactive as herself, since it was spiky and pointing in every possible direction. Kind of like mine.

I didn't recognize the third one until she turned around to face me. It was her.

The girl.

Almost as soon as she faced me out eyes locked and we just stared at each other for I don't know how long. It may have been seconds, it may have been minutes.

"Are you going to start the car?" Garrett chuckled, ending whatever it was that I had gotten sucked into.

"Yeah, sure," I panted. Why was I out of breath? Was it because I had been looking at her while my mind was running a mile a minute thinking about all the things I wanted to do to her? With her?

I backed out of the parking lot and drove off in the direction of the hotel, allowing myself one last glance at her before I disappeared around the bend.

She met my gaze again and winked at me, her friends laughing at her as she blushed a wonderful shade of pink.

I had to use everything I had in me not to turn the car around and go back to ask for her name, or her number, or her hand in marriage.

This was definitely going to end badly.

* * *

_**I don't know if it shows but I kind of struggled with this chapter. I'm not sure what it is about Edward but somehow in both my stories he has been the most difficult character to get a grip on. Writing this chapter took a lot longer than usual and even then it has gone through an almost complete rewrite this afternoon when I checked it over. I hope that didn't cause too many errors in spelling and grammar. If there are any annoying mistakes, please let me know and I'll fix it.**_

_**So....Edward and Bella have met. What will happen now? How will Bella have experienced their first meeting? What will happen when the girls go out to investigate The Pack? Those questions will get answered in the next chapter which I hope to have up by Friday.**_

_**For now, please let me know what you thought of this one and if you have any questions....feel free to ask. I won't answer all of them (not if it gives away too much of the plot) but you're more than welcome to ask.**_


	6. In da club

****

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.

* * *

**In da club.**

_**(Bella Swan)**_

"Come on Bella," Alice whined. "You know you're not the best liar in the world! I know something is up and you better tell me before I pull out the heavy machinery."

The moment I had emerged from the hospital both Alice and Rosalie had guessed something had happened while I had been breaking and entering my way into the path lab. At first they had just thought I had been discovered but of course my treacherous body had to betray me with a fierce blush when they asked me if I had been caught.

"What?" I had heard Alice say something but my mind was still pleasurably fogged over with thoughts about the man I had just met.

"I said SPILL!" the pixie growled.

"Jeez, impatient much? Back off Nancy Drew!" I huffed, rolling my eyes at the hyperactive little sprite next to me.

"How about you give the pixie what she wants?" Rosalie growled, towering over me in all her intimidating statuesqueness.

"Don't you start….." I groaned, trying to sneak past them and make for safer grounds.

No such luck.

I should have known a crowded parking lot wasn't the best place to escape from, not with so many obstacles blocking your way. Straight ahead a huge Escalade made it impossible to run while over to my left my escape route was cut off by Alice, dancing around in front of me like she was on a pogo stick, while Rose was standing on my right side, hand on hip and kickass face in place.

"Okay," I sighed. "But please let us get home first? If we are going to do the girly thing where we spill our guts while braiding each others hair I need both Ben and Jerry on my side." I had discovered that huge amounts of ice cream kind of muffled the screams that usually ensued when one of us spoke about her love life and God knows they would be screaming when they found out about Totally Hot Guy From The Morgue.

"Yay!" Alice squealed before skipping off to her car.

"And yet she wonders why she's still single…." Rose chuckled beside me as we watched Alice dance across the parking lot like she was some fucked up version of the Energizer Bunny.

"They do say every Jack had his Jill," I laughed back.

"I feel for the poor guy that would have to put up with her for the rest of his life," Rose snorted.

"At least he'll go through his ordeal dressed in the latest fashion trends."

"I heard that!" Alice growled, standing next to her blindingly yellow car.

"What are you gonna do? Slap me?" Rose chuckled. "You might want to ask Bella to give you a little boost or you won't be able to reach my face."

"Just you wait," Alice seethed.

I just stood to the side laughing. Rose and Alice had been together for years and their bond was almost sister like. They had welcomed me with open arms when I had been taken in by Carlisle almost a year ago but I had yet to reach that same familiarity they had. For now I was just happy to watch them bicker from a safe distance.

Just when we were getting ready to get into the car a strange feeling crept up on me. It felt like we were being watched. I looked to see if Rose and Alice felt the same but they were still distracted. I turned around to see two men sitting in a silver Volvo a few rows ahead. The man in the passenger seat busying himself with something while the other stared at the three of us. A shiver ran down my spine when I recognized him.

Totally Hot Guy From The Morgue.

The moment our eyes locked again I felt strange, weak, dizzy, almost like I was being hypnotized by those deep emerald green eyes. It was like they saw straight through me with an almost military expression. Like they had locked onto something deep inside of me and were unwilling to ever let go.

I faintly remembered his hair, the almost bronze colored looks going off in every possible direction like they had a mind of his own. They looked like they could handle themselves in the bedroom.

No, strike that.

They looked like they had handled themselves very well in the bedroom quite recently.

In fact, they looked like some lucky girl had just buried her hands in them while being on the receiving end of the best sex of her life.

God, how I wanted to be that girl.

Apart from that I could only say that his frame was tall and strong without ever being hulky. More lanky than Tarzan-shaped. I thought I could see the faint outline of muscled arms and a chest that looked like it had been carved by Michelangelo himself but my eyes could have been deceiving me.

I mean, no guy could ever be that hot. Right?

The moment our eyes had locked I had been lost – as indeed I was now. It was like there was some kind of connection. Something between us that I had yet to discover. It almost made me want to dig up some information on reincarnation.

Of course all of this had reduced me to sheer idiocy and instead of working my magic on him – as Rose and Alice had taught me to do – I had just stood there, staring at him with a face that probably looked like the last solitaire brain cell had vacated the building a long time ago.

I had been lucky to escape, though part of me considered it unfortunate.

The moment I had tried to sneak past him he had sprung into action and started asking me awkward questions that I could never answer like "What are you doing here?" Sure there was an answer but somehow I though the only thing "I'm part of an elite crime fighting team backed by an anonymous millionaire for whom I'm currently in an operation to uncover the truth behind the murder of Tyler Crowley in a desperate attempt to save one of my predecessors" would get me was a one-way ticket to the funny farm and from what Alice had told me about the place I'd want to steer clear of it.

"Earth to Bellaaaaaaa!" Alice sang, waving her hand in front of my face. "Are you ever going to get into the car?" I noticed she was still standing by the door, holding the driver's seat up so that I could get in the back.

"Yeah," I said, still completely distracted by Totally Hot Guy, who was currently pulling out of the parking lot.

When he drove past us I caught his glance again and yet again I was stunned, hypnotized by those green orbs.

I don't know what came over me. I guess I just wanted to give him something to remember me by, not just as the girl who gawked at him when he caught her breaking into a morgue, but just as a girl. So I winked at him, my cheeks burning as I did it.

I could see the faintest trace of a smile just before he turned into the road leading into the city center. It wasn't until he had completely vanished from sight that I allowed myself to take a first shaky breath.

"That was HIM! Wasn't it?" Alice shrieked, jumping up and down like a mad kangaroo as she pushed me into the back seat.

"Yes, that was him," I grudgingly admitted.

"You mean the guy in the dadmobile?" Rose asked incredulously. Leave it to her to only pay attention to the car and not the hot guy driving it.

"You want me to follow it?" Alice grinned, veering off in the direction in which I had watched Totally Hot Guy drive off.

"NO!" I yelled, reaching behind the head support of her seat and grabbing her neck. "Do that pixie and so help me God I will strangle you!"

"Bite my head off for wanting to help, why don't you," Alice huffed, speeding towards our apartment.

Alice wasted no time after we got home. She blew through the house like a whirlwind, setting up the couch with comfortable pillows, a gallon of ice cream on the coffee table and Oprah Winfrey providing background commentary.

When she was satisfied the living room was in top 'girl talk' condition she ordered us to sit down and get comfortable.

"So Rosalie," Alice started once everyone got settled, her eyes twinkling with mischief and curiosity. "You and Bosley?"

"Emmett," Rose spat back. "And what happened to picking on Bella?"

"She wasn't the first one that got caught in the middle of a tryst today," Alice said dismissively. "Now spill."

"Okay," Rose sighed. "But you better deliver on the details too missy!" She pointed one of her perfectly manicure fingers at me. "So you know I've had my eyes on him for some time now?"

We nodded. It was no secret that Rose liked Emmett, except perhaps to Emmett. After we had gotten over our first shock of seeing perpetually pms-ing Rosalie Hale in love, it had kind of made sense. Rose wanted comfort and security, both of which our strong muscular Bosley could deliver.

The things that had happened to her in the past had made her not only long for security but had also made her want recognition. She had been cast aside like an old shoe and basically left to die by both her parents and her fiancé. It wasn't so strange that in reaction to that she needed to feel special, wanted. Emmett had been following her around like an overgrown puppy since the first day he had arrived at the office. It didn't take a degree in nuclear physics to know that he would always worship the ground she walked on.

"Anyway," Rose continued, her eyes turning distant. "I figured I had waited long enough for the little pussy to make the first move…."

"So you dove right in, so to speak?" Alice giggled.

"No you little psycho!" Rose giggled. "I didn't intend for anything like that to happen. Well…..not right away. I just wanted to reel him in you know?"

"So what happened to make us catch you on your knees then?" I asked. It was very clear she hadn't stopped at just talking and dazzling the guy.

"He started talking about his car……" Rose's eyes glazed over and her cheeks flashed a flustered shade of pink. "You know how I love it when guys do that."

Alice and I exchanged knowing looks. Forget talking dirty, if a guy really wanted to get Rose riled up all he had to do was mention a carburetor and she'd basically pounce on him.

"That when the two of you came in," Rose shrugged. "It was so sad…..really. He was just about to come……"

"Ewwww! Too much information!" Alice said, her nose scrunched up in disgust. "So are you boyfriend and girlfriend now?"

"I don't know…." Rose looked puzzled. "I guess so."

Satisfied she had gotten every bit of information out of Rose, Alice now tuned to me. "So Bella, care to explain to auntie Alice what had you so worked up when you came back from your little recon at the hospital?"

"Ehhhh.....well.........I......." You'd think that for someone who had had about an hour to come up with a good story I wouldn't have been babbling like an idiot right now.

"So you met a guy?" Alice offered hopefully.

"Yeah," I realized my voice probably sounded like that of a gushing teenage girl but I couldn't find it in myself to care since the very happy vision of Totally Hot Guy drifted back into my already flustered little brain. "I met **the** guy."

"Where?" Alice asked. "Did he work at the front desk? The coffee stand? Hospital Security? Oh hospital security would be good. Not only would you have a guy that knows how to handle a gun, we wouldn't have any trouble with future beak ins and......."

"He works at the morgue," I interrupted her before she was halfway through planning my wedding with some ugly security guy.

"The morgue?" both of them yelled in disgusted voices. It broke me out of my pleasant Totally Hot Guy-induced haze. What was wrong with that?

"Yeah," I sighed, slowly coming down from my buzz.

"You fell in love with a guy at the MORGUE?" Alice yelled incredulously.

"Yeah?"

"You fell in love with a guy at the morgue?" Rose repeated.

"I guess that about sums it up," I nodded.

"That's sick!" Rose said with a disgusted look on her face.

"Why?"

"Come on Bella," Alice chimed in. "You know better than to date an ME! They are total fruitcakes!"

"This one seemed alright," I mumbled, thinking back on the sparkling emeralds that had left me without speech.

"Bella," Rose chided. "Think practical!"

"Huh?"

"They guy works at a morgue for Gods sake. He spends his days elbow deep in dead bodies!"

"Which is gross!" Alice interrupted.

"Alice," Rose growled, shooting Alice a pointed glare for interrupting her.

"What? It is!" Alice said offended.

"Right. Well, do you really want him to come home after a hard days work and stick those fingers into you hooha?"

"Ew" Even Alice seemed disgusted by Rose's bluntness.

"I guess that answers the question!" Rose said with a smug smile on her lips.

"But...." My mind was running a mile a minute trying to come up with another explanation. "What if he didn't work at the morgue? What is he was just visiting?"

"You said yourself that the guy was dressed in surgical scrubs, right?" Rose questioned.

I nodded.

"So what would he be doing there if he wasn't working there? Drop by for tea and cookies?"

"I don't know."

"You don't want to know," she giggled, waggling her eyebrow at me.

"Can we just stop before I puke all over my new Prada boots?" Alice groaned. I guess the combinations of pathologists and necrophilia was too much for her. "We have to start getting you ready for tonight anyway," Alice said. "If you're going to wheedle your way into The Pack you need a lot more than just that ratty old jeans and oversized t-shirt you're wearing right now."

"Wow, wow, wow, back the fuck up," I yelled. "What do you mean 'wheedle my way into the pack'?"

"You're going to work your magic on one of those hot dangerous boys and get all the information we need," Alice stated as if she had just asked me to go to the nearest Safeway and pick up a carton of milk.

"Right," I replied, still stunned. "You do know that I don't do charming don't you? And what happened to Rose anyway?" Usually Rose was the one who did the charming. I swear, between her looks and her incomparable seducing tactic the girl could sell ice to the Eskimo's.

"Most of the pack, the ones that matter – know who Rose and I are. They'll never let anything slip whenever we're around," Alice explained. "You, on the other hand, are fresh meat."

"So the two of you are just going to send me in on my own?" I realized I was sounding more like a frightened child than an elite crime fighter at the moment but the prospect of having to charm the pants of some psycho gang member seemed rather daunting.

"No you silly!" Alice said, rolling her eyes at my stupidity. "That's what we have modern communication equipment for. We're just going to be in the club, enjoying ourselves and giving you directions on how to proceed."

"Ah." Explained like that my question did seem rather stupid.

"Why are you suddenly afraid of gang members anyway? You've dated far more dangerous criminals than that!"

"It's not the gang members I fear," I mumbled. It was the seducing part that had me worried. Judging from the pictures I had seen the men in the gang all seemed to be handsome and self-confident, two things I had rarely encountered in the men I had flirted with. How would a mousy little thing like me ever get their attention? Let alone wheedle possibly dangerous information out of one of them?

"Silly little girl," Alice chuckled, pushing me into her bedroom. "Just you wait until I'm finished with you. You'll have men lying at your feet begging to kiss them."

"Yeah, yeah," I sighed. "But if I see even the slightest hint of pink I'm out."

Alice rolled her eyes. "I asked you to take a little step out of your comfort zone. I don't intend to turn you into a complete girly girl!" I let out a huge relieve sigh. All kinds of horrible scenarios, including me prancing around in a pink tutu, had started to develop in my head at the mention of the club. "Yet," she added with a wicked smile.

She pushed me into a chair standing in the center of her room and started waving all kinds of stuff around my face. After she was satisfied I was poked and prodded into a state of near perfection she called in Rosalie for an outsiders opinion.

I was starting to get a little nervous by that time and the way they stood in front of me, scrutinizing me like I was a thoroughbred in a horse show didn't do a whole lot to comfort me either.

Rose must have picked up on my nerves because she stealthily excused herself from her room claiming she needed to set up the laptop for our plan of attack. It wasn't so much that she didn't care about my mental wellbeing or was scared of showing emotions, it was just that she knew she wasn't the one to give comforting pep talks. She was more the girl who gave you the last little push, boosting your self control with some snarky remark

I was in need of Alice now.

"Ally?" I squeaked as soon as Rose had left.

"You're scared?" she asked, pulling me over to her closet to finish this session of Bella Barbie.

"I've never flown solo before," I managed to mumble. I had never done a thing like this before. I had done chases in every form imaginable – foot, car, bicycle and even on a horse – I had been in more hand to hand combats than I dared to remember and had broken into most of the office buildings in downtown Forks at least once. This, however, was Rosalie's terrain.

And I was no Rosalie.

"You'll be fine Bella," she said, handing me my outfit for the night. "Carlisle didn't pick you because of your charming personality." I rolled my eyes at her. "You have it in you to be a great angel. He saw that as well as Rosalie and I do. All you need to do is embrace it." she patted me on the back and shoved me back into the room. "And anyway......we'll talk you though it so nothing can go wrong. Just remember not to take any unnecessary risks. Safety comes first."

I nodded. I had never been quite so happy for modern technology, allowing me to remain in contact with both my fellow angels throughout the evening.

"Plus you get to take the new and improved Bella for a test run!" she added giggling as I pulled on the outfit she had selected for me.

"This is actually pretty nice," I said incredulously, taking a tentative peek in the mirror.

"Don't look so surprised," Alice huffed. "I can do Bella's version of nice."

It really was Bella's version of nice. Somehow she had managed to make me look girly and pretty in a band t-shirt and jeans. The things that had changed was that the AC/DC t-shirt she had picked out for me was formfitting and instead of pants I was dressed in a distressed denim mini skirt which was a little out of my comfort zone but since it still covered my ass I wasn't complaining.

"And this will top it all off." I jumped as Alice appeared behind me out of nowhere holding a sea of black leather that on closer inspection appeared to be a pair of knee high biker boots and a biker jacket.

"Did you rob a Hells Angel, Ally?" I asked. I had never seen Alice carry this much leather before.

"You know I don't go anywhere near scary smelly hairy bikers unless I have to Bella," Alice scolded. "The biker look is hot right now. All the top designers use it."

She poked and prodded some more before we joined Rose in the living room where she had set up the laptop.

"You look amazing Bella!" she yelled as soon as she saw me. "I love the outfit and the hair!"

Alice had kept my hair simple, just fixing it into soft curls and work a whole array of products in it that made it look smooth and shiny.

"So what have you got for us babes?" Alice sang, plopping onto the couch next to Rosalie.

"I think this is our man," she said, pointing at a tall broad shouldered male that filled the screen. When she zoomed out he seemed to be standing a little bit away from the rest of the gang, looking slightly peeved about something.

"Is this all you have on him?" I asked, leaning closer to the screen.

"No, there are some more pictures," she clicked a few times and more pictures flashed over the screen. He was in all of them, looking distracted, angry or absent.

"I see what you mean," Alice nodded. "Do we know anything about him?"

"No previous or fingerprints. Not even as much as a name," Rose replied. "I think he must be important though, judging from the amount of material we have on him."

"So we go after this guy," I stated, taking a better look at him. He was handsome, that's for sure, but he seemed to be well aware of it. His russet colored skin and deep black hair groomed into perfection and his t-shirt clinging to his chest, showing off his best feature.

From what I could see in his air and the way he carried his body he appeared to be quite the ladies man, a fact I filed away for future reference.

We ironed out a few more details for our plan of attack and geared up on our communication equipment before we left for New Moon, the club owned by The Pack and the heart of their empire.

"I wish Carlisle would find a more comfortable way of keeping in touch," Alice growled as she replaced the microphone that was placed over one of our molar teeth, making it look like it was filling rather than a ultramodern piece of communication equipment.

"Right there with you babe," Rose growled from behind the steering wheel of her flashy red BMW as she poked into her ear with one of her fingers, trying to keep the receiver in place. "I'm actually working on a way of modifying it so that it's at least a little bit more comfortable."

Even though being one of Carlisle's Angels required pretty allround skills we all had certain aspects of the job that we liked more than others. For Rose it was transportation, equipment and the charm offensive, Alice mostly dealt with outfits, the computer stuff and planning and my fortes were research, hand to hand combat and breaking and entering.

It was fucking bittersweet to discover that when once I had dedicated my life to prevent acts of violence from happening or people from being the victim of thieves and intruders I had now become one. The only thing that made it right, or so I kept telling myself, was the fact that I was doing it to actually prevent crimes from being committed.

"Are you ready babes?" Rose asked as she pulled up in front of the club, the valets practically drooling at the sight of her car.

I took a deep breath. "I guess I am," I said in what I hoped was a confident tone to my voice.

"You can do it Bella," Alice soothed, putting a comforting hand on my shoulder. "Just have faith."

The two of us walked over to Rose who was putting the fear of God into some poor unsuspecting valet.

"Listen to me, you little dropout," she barked, dangling her car keys in front of his face like she was trying to hypnotize him. "I know every part of this car inside out. Every part," she spat as the valets eyes grew huge and he swallowed hard. "If I get this car back later tonight and there is as much as a speck of dust on it the punishment will be severe, you get that?" The poor guy was much to frightened to actually react. "I said DO. YOU. GET. THAT?" she repeated, pricking her fingernails into his chest.

"Yes ma'am," he stammered, almost saluting.

"Good," Rose smirked, "then I can trust you with the keys to my possession."

"Having fun Rose?" I chuckled as we watched the valet pull out of the valet stand with a carefulness and lack of speed that made all three of us snort.

"It's always nice to watch them squirm," Rose answered with a smug little smile. "Okay ladies, let's go in."

We managed to sail through security just fine. None of us was stupid enough to entertain the idea of trying to sneak weapons into a place like this. The Pack may have been rash and unpredictable in their behavior, that didn't mean they were stupid.

They had managed to keep out of the hands of the police for three years now when it was common knowledge they were the largest supplier of drugs in town and that at least five murders of dealers and prostitutes bore their signature, though that signature was yet to be confirmed as theirs.

How they had managed to evade the wrath of Lady Justice for so long I didn't know but what I did know was that it made them a force not to be underestimated. I had seen what they did to their enemies and depressed and emotional as I may have been, I had no death wish.

When we finally entered the main room of the club the place was packed already. Most of the sitting area was full, except for a booth that was roped off and had an imposing looking security agent standing in front of it.

"I don't think they're here yet?" I said, pointing to the booth.

"No, they don't come in until later," Alice yelled over the sounds of the thundering music. "That give us some time to check the place out and be prepared."

I clutched my ears as the combined sounds of Alice yelling in my ear in real life and Alice yelling in my ear through the tiny earpieces all three of us wore hit my head.

"Sorry," she laughed. "I guess I forgot we don't have to yell!"

"Ouch," I pouted, rubbing my ear. I once again marveled at the fact that these earpieces were so small no one had been able to detect them yet. The thing that amazed me even more was that Alice and Rosalie could be talking in my ear and a person standing next to me wouldn't be able to hear a thing. Rose had tried to explain it all to me once but since I wasn't exactly technically gifted I didn't understand half of what she was saying.

"You wanna go dance?" Rose asked.

"Could we get some drinks first?" I said, looking at the ocean of sweaty, horny people gyrating against each other on the dance floor. "I think I need to shoot up on some liquid courage before I'm ready to throw my ass into that mess."

We spend some time at the bar having a couple of drinks while we let our eyes wander over the room. The main club area was a large rectangular shaped room. The short sides were occupied by the stage and the DJ-booth on the far end and the entrance way and bar where we were standing on the other. The middle part of the room was reserved for dancing while the sides and a balcony that swept around the top end of the room were the designated sitting area's.

In the middle of the left side an imposing looking iron door, flanked by two security guards, seemed to give access to some kind of backstage area. I immediately made it my task for tonight to find out what was behind it. The way they had the door protected made me think it was something they didn't want the world to know...

"_Ohhh, I love this song!"_ Alice squealed as soon as the opening bars to 'Scream' by Timbaland blared through the club. _"We have to dance!" _

Like I had a choice! The moment the little sprite had recognized the song she had jumped down from her barstool and started to pull me into the direction of the large dry humping mass on the dance floor.

"_Don't look so disgusted Bella,"_ Rose chuckled. _"If you want to impress a Pack member you better bring you 'A game' tonight." _

"_I don't really think I have one," _I growled.

"_All the more reason for us to instruct you in the fine art of dancing,"_ she laughed, adjusting our bodies so that she was behind me and her hands were on my hips, leading them.

"_See!" _she said in a chirpy voice after we had ground into each other for some time. _"You're getting the hang of it." _

I sighed. It was a good thing Rose didn't see my face or she would not have been so pleased. I was pretty sure I was blushing fire engine red right now and the music wasn't really helping me feel more comfortable either. Judging by the sound of it the woman singing had been taken from behind by a mob of horny sailors while recording her bit in the studio.

"I knew you'd like it!" Alice sang, dancing in front of me. "Just let go Bella! You know you can do it!"

It was easy for her to say. Embarrassment seemed to be a word that was remarkably absent in the world of Alice Brandon and that combined with the fact she was a very good dancer made every man in the room do a double take when he saw her and Rose enter the dance floor.

I wondered if the boys from The Pack had already arrived. It was their club after all and it seemed strange that they wouldn't be here on a busy night like tonight.

Almost as soon as my eyes started to drift through the room, searching for a gang of tanned, black haired and muscular bad guys they seemed to settle on something else entirely.

Something I didn't expect to find but, now that I had found it, send a flutter through my body and a blush to my cheeks.

Wait a minute? Was I falling in love?

"_Do you see something?"_ I heard Rose ask in my ear. She must have felt my reaction.

"I do," I replied, making both of the girls scan the room for the tall muscled guy I was supposed to work my 'magic' on tonight. "But not in a way that would help us......"

"What is it Bella?" Rose growled, never liking to be left in the dark.

Well, she would just have to buy her own flashlight because I was beyond speech right now, for the second time today.

"_Oh my God," _Alice yelled, following my gaze. _"Is that Morgue Guy?" _

* * *

_**So Bella felt it too........What will happen when they meet again and how will The Pack fit into all of this? **_

_**We'll be back to Edward's POV for the next chapter. It will be titled 'Promiscuous Girl'.**_

**_Please review! It maked me write and update faster......_**


	7. Promiscuous Girl

****

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.

* * *

**Promiscuous girl.**

_**(Edward Masen)**_

"I think we can safely say that Eleazar was right when he called you." We pulled up in front of our hotel just as we were wrapping up our conversation with our field director.

"Hmm," I could tell Gibbs didn't like this piece of information. "So you agree with him that this case warrants our attention?"

"I do sir," I said. "It may still turn out to be some kind of lucky coincidence, but my professional opinion is that there is more to this case than just a gang murder."

"Scully, do you agree with Masen's assessment of the case?"

I looked at Garrett just in time to see a huge grin flashing across his face. It wasn't often that Gibbs asked the opinion of a rookie and even less often that he consulted Garrett. Like me he had a reputation of being difficult to work with, but unlike me, it was because of his uncanny ability to get himself into trouble. Whoever had thought of teaming the two of us up must have had some sick sense of humor.

"I do sir," Garrett repeated, looking at me like we were standing in front of a priest.

"Okay," Gibbs grudgingly admitted. "I give you guys two weeks to come up with something more substantial than just your female intuition. If nothing real has floated to the surface by then I'm pulling you out."

"Thanks sir," Garrett replied.

"Oh and Masen?"

"Yes sir?"

"Don't let you friendship with Denali blind you into believing he has a case. I want hard evidence."

"Of course, sir," I replied, pinching the bridge of my nose to keep my annoyance from slipping into my voice. "For now most evidence may be circumstantial but put together I do think this is a case that warrants our attention."

"Then find me the evidence to back your claim up," Gibs said. "I don't mean to doubt your capabilities Masen. It's my job to remain skeptical."

I wondered why Gibs would have given us the case if he thought my judgment in the case would be clouded. It stung to think that my superior thought so little of my capabilities as an agent – even though I had the best record for solving cases in the Seattle office – that he would think I would run after Eleazar like some lost boyscout the moment I saw him. I was a good agent, a professional to the bone, and I would never let any personal issues cloud my judgment.

'Yeah Edward,' the voice of my subconscious spoke, 'like you just did with that girl at the morgue.'

Perhaps Gibs might have been right to warn me after all.....

We discussed some more practical matters before ending the conversation just as we pulled up in front of our hotel.

"Meet me in my room in an hour. We need to figure out a plan," I told Garrett as I handed my car over to a valet.

"So I guess a quiet night with some pay per view is out then?"

"Seriously Scully," I pinched the bridge of my nose. "What planet do you live on? Why does everything always have to be about sex with you? Have you ever even tried talking to a woman?"

"They just punch me in the face when I do," he smirked. "And what's wrong with sex anyway? It's fun and kinda necessary to populate the earth."

Thankfully we reached our floor that moment because I didn't know how long I could remain in a closed space with Scully without committing a felony.

As soon as we stepped out of the elevator I was attacked by something soft and reeking of cheap perfume. I groaned as I remembered who that stench belonged to.

"Edward!" Tanya's sickly sweet voice purred. "I've missed you."

"I'll be in my room," Garrett said, fleeing the scene.

How the hell was I supposed to respond to that? Telling her I hadn't missed her for even a heartbeat would be the right thing to do but it was also incredibly harsh and ungentlemanly. Then again, not being harsh would only lead her to believe I actually cared for her and I sure as hell didn't want her to think that.

"Tanya," I said, prying her arms away from my neck. "What are you doing here?"

"My dad told me you were here," she said dismissively. The tiniest hint of a blush and the way her eyes shot from my face to the wall told me she was lying. "Don't you _want_ to see me Edward?"

"Not really." I couldn't help it, the words flew out of my mind before I knew it.

"What?" Tanya shrieked. "But you said I was beautiful!"

"I was drunk," I growled, looking around me to see we had caught quite the audience. "Let's not make a scene."

"So you took ADVANTAGE of me?" By this time Tanya was screaming like a banshee, much to the amusement of the other hotel guests.

"I said: let's not make a scene," I hissed through my teeth, trying to pull Tanya into my room while avoiding her claws all the while hoping none of those disaster tourists outside took this the wrong way and called the cops on me. The last thing I needed right now was Eleazar barging in to defend his daughters nonexistent innocence.

The moment I closed the door behind us Tanya changed tactics.

"Come on Eddie," she purred, opening the bottom buttons of her blouse. "You know you want me."

"I really don't." I replied, backing away from the hussy in front of me. Suddenly taking her into my room didn't seem like such a good idea any more.

She stalked towards me like a predator stalking it's prey. "That's not what you said that night when I made you scream my name."

I tried not to look at the sheer red lacy fabric that had been uncovered by the removal of her blouse but felt horribly trapped both by the room, which seemed to be much too small to evade a horny woman and by my treacherous body that was reacting to the sight in front of it.

"Think of what I did to you..........," she tried to sound seductive again. "Of what I can do to you."

I hardly remembered a thing of what happened that night but I seemed to recall that sex with Tanya had been a less than pleasurable event. Perhaps it was just because I wanted to think it, but somehow the way she moved and talked seemed to confirm my suspicion. There was nothing sexy about this girl no matter how hard she tried.

"Tanya," I tried to remain as calm as I could given the circumstances. "Please understand that that night I made a mistake. I had had a very rough day and a lot to drink and I did something I shouldn't have. I don't want you. I have never wanted you and I will never want you."

"You're only saying that because my dad was your former partner," she retorted, dismissing what I thought was a pretty firm statement. "I can see how much you long for me."

She was standing so close now our bodies were almost touching and her vile scent, a mixture of cheap perfume, clingyness and insincerity polluted the air around us.

"I bet I can get the real Eddie to come out and play," she giggled, brushing her hand over the front of my jeans.

Even though the rest of me was revolted by her touch, my treacherous penis couldn't help but respond. I caught the satisfied glint in her eyes the minute she felt it twitch against her hand.

"Get the hell away from me Tanya," I growled, "or I'll call the cops on you."

"That's not the message little Eddie is telling me," she purred, grabbing my member in a firm hold and stroking it through the fabric of my pants.

The different parts of my body were locked in a fierce battle. My head was overflown with disgust, not just for the vile woman who was touching me, but also for myself for actually enjoying it. I wanted to push her away, yell at her and make for a safer place but that other, infinitively more treacherous part of my body, the part that was enjoying all the attention it was currently getting, wouldn't let me.

"Give in to it," she encouraged, pushing her chest into mine. "You know you want to You know you want to fuck me."

Her usage of crude language was just the little incentive the more gentlemanly part of me needed to push me away.

"No," I growled. "I don't want this. Go home Tanya, you disgust me."

She seemed almost stunned for a moment as she stood a few feet away from me, confused and panting for breath. Then her anger seemed to take over again.

"Just wait until my father hears of this," she shrieked, slapping me across the face before storming out of the room.

"Too late sweetheart, he already did!" I yelled after her.

She froze and turned to me, her face as pale as a sheet.

"You told him?' she shrieked. "You told him you slept with me and he let you live?"

"He found out all on his own," I replied as calmly as I could. "You're not as good at hiding things as you thought you were."

For some reason this made launch into some kind of panic attack. Her eyes flickering frantically from one side to another as she gasped for breath, her face an unhealthy shade of white.

For the briefest of moments I wondered if I should help her. I was still angry about the way she had reacted and the things she had said to me but we were close once and regardless of that, I couldn't just let a woman suffer.

Before I had time to react though she had fled into an elevator and vanished out of sight leaving me with a pounding headache and a new audience of spectators.

"Show is over," I barked at them before slamming the door shut.

The moment I heard the loud bang I realized I probably shouldn't have done that. Slamming doors wasn't a polite thing to do but it was down right stupid when you had a crippling headache.

I was just searching through my stuff for the bottle of aspirin I had packed when there was a knock on the door. At first I thought it was Tanya, coming back for round two, but then I realized the knock was far too powerful to belong to a woman.

"What?" I growled as I opened the door. It better not be one of the spectators asking for a repeat performance.

"I take it the scary love interest just left?" Garrett grinned, cradling a selection of tiny liquor bottles to his chest. "I figured you might need a drink after that."

I had forgotten we were supposed to meet here to go over our tactics on this case.

"Tanks but no thanks," I said, stepping to the side. "Aspirin will do."

"Come on Eddie!" he chuckled, patting my shoulder. "Live a little."

"Edward," I corrected him, "and for your information, I do have a life. I just don't drink while on duty."

"Really Masen. You need to get laid. Pronto," Garrett stated, shaking his head. "And I don't mean by some psycho bitch like Eleazar's girl but by a proper woman."

"The last thing I need right now is more drama in my life!" I groaned, rubbing my temples. The only thing I really needed right now was some aspirin.

"Put on something nice sweetheart," Garrett ordered. "We're going out tonight."

"You know we don't have time for that....." I started.

"Yeah, yeah, we have work to do and all...." he huffed rolling his eyes. "but if we went to that club that gang owned....what are they called again?"

"The Pack," I growled, grabbing a bottle of aspirin from my suitcase.

"Oh yeah, 'The Pack'," he chuckled, rolling his eyes. "What kind of name is that any way? Are they like a troupe of dogs? Or – even better – a pack of fannies. You get that?" he grinned like he had just invented a miracle. "Fanny pack!"

"Get on with it Scully!" I barked.

"Okay," he huffed. "So if we go there we could totally call it work. You can go find some girl to play with your dick while I check out the rat pack."

I opened my mouth to shoot his plan down but actually his suggestion wasn't half bad. Not that I was even considering picking up some random girl at a bar, of course, but looking into The Pack was something we needed to do regardless of our plan.

"Okay," I grudgingly accepted.

"Okay?" Garrett looked like he had just won the lottery.

"Just give the aspirin some time to kick in and give me a minute to get changed."

"Right dude," Garrett grinned. "I'll meet you in the lobby in twenty."

I made a quick phone call to my parents to let them know where I was and ask how they were doing before changing into some clothes more fitting for a night on the town. I didn't feel comfortable about loosing my weapons. Somehow the presence of my standard issue Glock 23 made me feel more in control. Without them I felt almost naked.

I sighed. It couldn't be helped. There was no way we could evade security at the club carrying our weapons without revealing ourselves as federal agents and there was no way we could learn anything new about our case if we did.

I would just have to suck it up and go behind enemy lines unarmed.

The club was just like any other I'd been to in my life. Loud music, lots of drunk people grinding into each other and more groping and random sex acts going on in the designated seating area's.

"First round is on me!" Garrett said, patting me on the back as soon as we entered the main club area. "You want a beer?"

"We're on duty Scully!" I yelled over the music. "We're supposed to remain sober."

"We're at a club for God's sake," Garrett yelled in my ear. "If a guy orders a club soda at a bar in a club and it isn't for his lady friend they are going to fucking know who we are. So either you yank off your manly bits or I'm ordering us two beers."

He didn't even wait for my reply before he stalked off, leaving me at the mercy of a gang of horny females that had been ogling us since the moment we first stepped foot in the club.

After I had successfully shaken them off by making the most of the crowded conditions I went back to find Garrett.

"Let's go upstairs," I said, taking my beer from his as I pointed towards the balcony that stretched around the room. "We'll get a much better scope of things from there."

We moved across the dance floor, careful to evade all gyrating appendages around us as the music – or whatever it was that they called this song – kept banging in our ears.

"It's a shame the guys who own this place are criminals because man, this place is amazing!" Garrett yelled over the moaning and panting that currently resounded though the club.

"Remembered, we're not here for our own enjoyment," I reminded him. "We're here because we have a job to do."

I thought I heard him mumble something along the lines of 'tedious dick' as I studied the room in front of me, thankful that the rectangular shape of the room allowed us to get a clear view of it. I noticed a booth at the opposite end of the room that appeared to be empty and well guarded by a bunch of bruisers. That must be where The Pack usually resided.

The fact that it was currently empty and looked like it had been since the club opened, told me that they hadn't arrived yet.

Good.

That gave us some time to prepare before we set out on business.

The club was packed, a rare event for a Monday night. They must have done something right in the way of PR to have this many people in tonight, or perhaps they had just forced them to come. Considering The Pack's track record it wouldn't even surprise me if they would.

The moment I let my eyes wander over the crowds below was when I first spotted her.

The beautiful girl from the morgue.

She was dancing in the center of the dance floor, the two other girls who were with her at the hospital dancing around her. Their movements fitted the tone of the music. They were erotic – pretty much so actually – without ever becoming slutty. They most have done this before, judging by the way they moved, though the other two seemed to be having a little more experience with this type of dancing than my brown haired angled.

Still, the way her hips swayed and her head was slightly arched back, her mouth a little open and her eyebrows frowned in concentration, was enough to almost make me fall apart just from the sight of her. How was it that this woman seemed to be the embodiment of perfection in every way imaginable?

I sighed, making some adjustments to my clothing and stance without taking my eyes off the heavenly sight in front of me.

This was going to be hard. In more than one respect.

I had to remind myself of who I was repeatedly. If not I would probably have thrown everything I had learned on the job out of the window, along with my sanity, the moment I had first caught her dancing.

I was and FBI agent and though I might be off duty right now, that didn't change the fact that I had an obligation to the bureau and to my country. I couldn't just ignore all of that for the first beautiful, mesmerizing and bewitching woman I saw breaking into a morgue in broad daylight.

I had to find out what it was that she was doing there and if it had any bearings on the case.

"Are you okay mate?" I faintly heard Garrett ask. "You look like you've seen a ghost!"

"I have," I muttered. "In a way."

"Care to explain?" he followed my gaze, his eyes landing on the dance floor and the three women dancing in the center of it.

"Damn! Those girls are hot!" He yelled, whistling appreciatively as he let his eyes glide over their bodies. The thought that his filthy womanizing eyes were currently raking over the mysterious girl from the morgue made me want to grab the back of his head and slam it into the iron railing of the balcony. Repeatedly.

She was mine. Just for me.

Wait.....where did that come from? Whatever happened to being a professional? What happened to duty first?

"Do you know any of them?"

"I saw the brown haired girl earlier today," I admitted.

"Then what are you still doing here man?" Garrett yelled incredulously as he started pushing me in the direction of the stairs. "Go after her! She's hot! If you don't do it I will."

"What happened to detective Mulder?"

"It's no good betting on just the one horse, Masen," he chuckled. "Man you're so dense when it comes to women."

"It's complicated," I said, my eyes resting on my tainted angel once more. "When I said I saw her earlier today I kind of meant that I caught her breaking into the morgue....."

"So that's what had you all atwitter?" Garrett laughed. "I still say you should go after her."

"But what if she's on the wrong side of the law?"

"I only said go after her and flirt a little. Maybe have a little recon sex," Garrett spoke as if that sort of thing happened all the time. "It's amazing how that post-coital glow makes women spill just about every secret they have."

"What?"

"It's true man!" he said. "If the powers that be only knew half of it they would have added condoms to the standard equipment of a field agent a long time ago."

"So you're saying

"As long as you keep thinking with your head and not with your dick.....yeah," he said, patting me on the back. "Go forth and conquer!"

I rested my eyes on the strange enchanting girl again. She was still dancing with her two friends and to say their movements had me a little worked up would be the understatement of the year. The blond girl was standing behind her, guiding her hips as they danced closely. Very closely. I wondered what it would feel like to stand there, to have those small delicious curves in my hands and guide them as we moved in perfect sync. What would it feel like to have her tiny body flush against mine?

She chose that exact moment to look up, her large chocolate eyes conveying a mixture of shock and recognition as they met mine.

Her fiends must have noticed something because they looked up almost as soon as she did. The short, spiky haired one saying something I couldn't hear over the thundering music as the blond bombshell leaned in and whispered something in the brown haired angels' ears, making that same delightful blush I had caught earlier today reappear.

I wondered what her cheeks would feel like when she blushed and if the redness was restricted to her face or took over all of her body.

I chastised myself once more. Thoughts like that would totally screw up the game plan. I had to concentrate. Get ahead of the game.

I slowly moved towards the stairs, trying to clear my head and focus on my task instead of the longing I felt, as every step took me closer to her.

When I reached the dance floor I noticed that it was just the girl standing there, looking a little lost. Her friends must have gone over to the bar for a drink or something. I should have seen them leave. I had never lost sight of them during my descent to the dance floor but, as I remembered now, instead of keeping an eye on all of them I had been far to distracted with the beautiful angel.

When I got closer I noticed her looking around frantically, her eyes scanning the crowd for someone. I wondered who that was, a strange sensation coming over me at the thought that maybe she was looking for some boyfriend.

Was I jealous?

No. I shook my head as if to shake those silly thoughts out of it. It was just professional annoyance. If some kind boyfriend crawled out of this tangle of heaving, gyrating bodies it would make it that much harder to charm the truth out of this girl.

When she spotted me her cheeks flared up in a charming reddish color, making my heart flutter in my chest. Perhaps she wasn't looking for another guy after all.

'No, you stupid! Of course she wasn't!' I chastised myself as I remembered who she was with earlier and how her friends seemed to have disappeared. Of course she was looking for them!

I made my way towards her, slowly but surely, trying to think of a way to strike up a conversation.

"Hi." Okay, genius line to go with.

"Hi," she replied, her blush deepening.

"So, we meet again."

"Yes, funny how we keep brushing into each other," she smiled. She seemed distracted for a little while but refocused her attention on me after that. "It's almost as if you are following me."

"I seem to remember it was you who was breaking into the morgue, not me," I said, my tone perhaps a little firmer than I had wanted it to be. "By the way....you never did tell me what you were doing there."

I saw a hint of panic dance over her face before she recovered and put her mischievous smile back in place.

I had to hand it to her, she was rather good at this, almost as if she had been trained to do it.

"I told you.....," she said, her voice a little darker and a lot sexier than before "The stiff was a cousin of mine."

"And I am supposed to believe that?" I chuckled, before turning serious again. There was something about this girl, some secret she was keeping, and I was desperate to find out.

Professionally desperate of course.

"It's your choice," she shrugged, trying to flee away from me again.

This time, however, I had seen it coming. Instead of allowing her to run away from me yet again I managed to grab her arm and pull her back to me. I used a little too much force, though, sending her body crashing into mine.

The sensation caused by the feeling of her tiny frame in my arms awoke feelings in my body I never even knew I was capable of feeling. I knew there and then that I never wanted to let her go. That I couldn't let her go.

As a man. Not as an agent.

Shit.

"Let go of me jackass!" she yelled, her first slamming into my chest with an unsuspected force.

"Not before you tell me what the hell is going on sweetheart," I demanded, looking into her eyes. "Please," I added, not wanting her to hate me or think I was going to abuse her or something. "You can trust me."

I saw her expression change from angry and defiant to sad and frustrated as we kept looking at each other. I didn't know if it was seconds, minutes or hours before she broke the silence - and I didn't even care – but in the end she seemed to recover again.

"What are you," she chuckled. "My shrink?"

"Nope," I grinned back. "Just someone looking for some answers."

"It's just....complicated," she said, her big eyes looking into mine, pleading with me to understand something she herself didn't seem to grasp entirely just yet. "And anyway......what happened to men falling for mysterious women? I thought you guys went crazy for that shit?"

"Just cut the crap and tell me why you were there," I growled. I knew there was something she was keeping for me and I had to know. Not just because I wanted to vindicate her off all the crimes my brain – tainted by years of dealing with criminals – had come up with but also because I had a nagging feeling that whatever she was keeping from me was placing her in danger and somehow I felt very protective of her.

"I can't," she sighed, averting her eyes. "Not even if I wanted to.........But you have to believe me when I say that I'm not a bad person."

"I want to believe you," I said, enveloping her face in my hands. Really, I wanted to believe her. But why did she have to make it so damn hard?

"I guess that's a start." She tried to smile but there was still so much sadness in her face. I just wished I could take it away.

"Would you dance with me?" I asked. Dancing was good. It was an excuse to stay close to her and it might be able to relieve some of the pain and stress her delicate body seemed to be under as well. It would also give me a chance to study her behavior and maybe even get her to open up to me.

"Okay," she said hesitantly, her eyes flickering the the upstairs area of the club for the slightest hint of a second.

She took a step back and squeezed her eyes shut, almost as if she was concentrating really hard on something. When she opened her eyes again it was as if the atmosphere between us became charged with a static electricity so powerful it was almost tangible.

The way she looked at me, her eyes hooded and shining with something my sex crazed brain told me was lust, biting down on her plump bottom lip send a shiver through my system that must have been visible on Mars.

This was going to get hard. Very hard.

Literally.

A new song started, luckily one that I actually knew. It was a good thing for her that this song was a little less....pornographic than the last one because I didn't know if I would have been able to control myself if I had to dance with her to the sounds of someone clearly enjoying herself....very much.

Right. Music. Dancing.

I took her arm and pulled her towards me, my arms wrapping around her tiny frame almost as if they had never done anything else in their life. She sighed contently as she into me, resting her head on my shoulder as our hips set a slow grinding rhythm.

As the music grew more hearted she leaned back slightly, pushing her hips into mine as she looked up to me with a lust filled haze in her eyes, our movements getting more and more erotic as we went. The effect of the music and our movements was lost on neither of us. I could feel her heart pounding against my chest as she inched closer again, creating a deliciously torturous friction as our hips continued moving against each other.

My pants were starting to feel more and more constricting which caused a new dilemma. Would she be disgusted if she felt it and apart from that, rubbing your hard on against some poor unsuspecting woman's legs wasn't a very gentlemanly thing to do. A tiny moan, almost too low to be heard over the thundering basses let me know that apparently she seemed to have other ideas.

She winked at me and started moving down slowly as the chorus of the song blared through the club. I had to focus on the lyrics and not the fact that the most beautiful woman was slowly inching toward the place that was almost screaming for her attention.

_Promiscuous girl  
Wherever you are  
I'm all alone  
And it's you that I want_

The realization that these lyrics were perhaps not the most helpful ones in a situation such as this – though I briefly wondered if there were any lyrics that could cool down a fire as strong as the one that had been ignited between us.

_Promiscuous boy  
You already know  
That I'm all yours  
What you waiting for?_

Coming to the conclusion that focusing on the lyrics was probably not as good an idea as it had seemed I made the even bigger mistake of looking down to the Beautiful Brunette, seeing her face was now almost level with my now very aroused groin.

Almost as if she sensed she was being watched she looked up at me through those heavy lidded eyes and bit her lips, almost making me explode at the spot, before she moved back up, sliding her body tortuously slow over mine.

Dear lord have mercy.

In a desperate effort to remain in control I turned her body around so that her back was now pressed against my chest. I figured that if I didn't have to face those treacherous eyes I might be able to handle this better.

Huge mistake.

I should have know better. I had seen her dance with her friend before and the movements they had made had been far from innocent. The moment she started moving the delicious curves of her ass against me I couldn't help but let out a pathetic little yelp. I could only pray for small favors and hope the sound got drowned in the music before it reached her.

I looked up to see Garrett smirking at me and shaking his head. It actually gave me the boost I needed to get myself together again. If that self proclaimed Gods gift to women could handle himself on the dance floor than so could I.

I mean, how hard could it be? Just breathe through your mouth and don't think with your dick.

Right.

The position we were in right now exposed the beautiful porcelain skin of her neck to me and I couldn't help but inch closer, lightly touching my nose to her skin. I could feel her shiver against me as she felt it.

As I moved my nose along her delicate neck I breathed in her scent which was as heavenly as her appearance. Fruity with a hint of flowers in it. It smelled feminine without being artificial. It smelled like home.

I couldn't stop myself from brushing my lips against the base of her neck. I really wanted to kiss her, find out if the taste of her was as delicious as her scent, but I couldn't. I knew that the moment I gave in to that urge I would be done for.

And I was here on official government business.

Or so I kept telling myself.

So I stuck to hovering over her skin, appreciating the bouquet without tasting the wine though every second that passed made me feel more like an alcoholic coming face to face with a glass of thirty year old Glenlivet.

As the next chorus came on I decided it was time to tease her as she had teased me. She seemed to have liked the closeness of my face to hers before so I decided to make use of that, and the treacherous lyrics of the song. I leaned in, my lips almost making contact with her ears as I whispered the words in her ears.

_Promiscuous girl  
Wherever you are  
I'm all alone  
And it's you that I want_

I wasn't that surprised when, after a first reaction that was exactly what I had been aiming for, she leaned back and brought her plump lips to my ears, brushing her nose along my jaw as she leaned in to sing the female part of the chorus.

_Promiscuous boy  
You already know  
That I'm all yours  
What you waiting for?_

I sang back to her, the lyrics conveying almost everything I felt that moment.

_Promiscuous girl  
You're teasing me  
You know what I want  
And I got what you need_

She giggled before leaning back in and singing the last part of the chorus, one of her hands tangling itself in my hair, pulling slightly at the roots.

_Promiscuous boy  
Let's get to the point  
Cause we're on a roll  
Are you ready?_

She turned in my arms again, her eyes once again holding that evil glint in them which I had grown to like so much over the last couple of minutes

My hand inched lower, resting on the curves of her ass as she moved her hips against mine again keeping both of us suspended in a pleasant state of arousal as my other hand rested on her side, my fingertips brushing against the underwire of her bra.

The way she looked up at me, her faced flushed with the heat of the moment and her plump, raspery colored lips parted slightly, made it almost painfully hard for me not to kiss her. I wondered if she would mind if I just did it.

If she would mind if I just threw her over my shoulder and marched out of here to some place with a bed in it. A place where I could worship every cell of her body in the manner it deserved.

She groaned, as if she her mind had wandered down the same path as mine, and pressed her body closer against mine as one of her hands weaved itself into my hair again, holding my face to her neck, as the other linked through my belt, pushing my hips into her as she ground against them

Did she have any idea of how good that felt? Did she have any idea of how hard she made it for me to hold on to what shards of control I could still conjure up?

My hands seemed to have giving up on belonging to any sort of gentleman because one of them had found its way to the perfect orbs of her breast, ghosting over it in tune with the music, as the other one crept slowly but surely towards the hem of her skirt.

Perhaps the fact that we were basically feeling each other up on a crowded dance floor should have bothered me but I couldn't bring myself to care. As far as I was concerned it was just her and me here, no names or other cumbersome circumstances mattered.

All too soon the song wound to a close and I felt her starting to move away from me. I had to suppress a groan as she removed her body from my hold before rising on tiptoe and leaning in again.

For a moment I thought she was going to kiss me and I was already bracing myself for the feeling of her lips against mine as I felt her nose brush along my jaw again before I heard her soft voice whisperer in my ear. "Thanks for the dance hotshot!"

"My pleasure," I muttered, still waiting for the blood to flow back to my head so that I could construct a proper sentence. "Wait? Are you leaving?" The though of her leaving me again, for the second time today, made me more anxious than I would have thought possible.

"Duty calls," she sighed, looking a little sad.

Wait a minute? What sort of duty would was she referring to that required her attention at a night like this and at a place like this? Was she a cop as well? No, she couldn't be. She would never have broken into a morgue if she were.

What the hell was going on with this girl?

"Wait!" I yelled, grabbing her hand before she could disappear in the crowd.

"What?" she looked a little hesitant at my sudden outburst.

"You didn't even tell me your name," I chuckled, trying not to sound as desperate as I really was.

"Bella," she smiled. "My name is Bella."

Bella. Beautiful. Now that was the understatement of the century.

"Edward," I said, taking her hand in mine and raising it to my lips. "Thank you for the dance Bella."

"Thank you, Edward," she said, before pulling her hand back

Before I had even noticed it she was already gone. I could just about see a hint of chocolate brown disappear in the direction of the staircase, her whole, glorious form coming back into view as she climbed up.

She looked back at me just as she reached the top of the stairs, her hair swirling around her head like a chocolate whirlwind as she turned.

God, she was so beautiful it was almost painful to look at.

She smiled and blew me a kiss before she took the last few steps and vanished from sight.

"Pack's here," Garrett announced, appearing out of the crowd. "So why didn't you go after the hot brunette?"

"I'm not here for my own entertainment," I growled. Garrett had been right, of course. I should have gone after the girl, if only to find out how she kept popping up at places associated with our case.

"How are you ever going to find a girl if you don't even have the balls to pursue one?" he scolded, rolling his eyes at me.

"I don't know mom," I spat back. "Why don't you tell me?"

"Anyhow...." Luckily Garrett seemed to have decided to let the matter drop for now. "I think we should go upstairs and watch what those puppies get up to. We have a clear view at their table from up there."

"Good idea," I said, a little too eagerly.

"And maybe you can look around for a certain brunette that just went up there?" Garrett smirked.

"Drop it Scully!" I warned, fighting my way through the masses.

I scanned the upstairs area the moment we arrived there but – much to my disappointment – couldn't find the brunette anywhere. Her friends where still there, leaning over the railing and looking down onto the dance floor, but she was nowhere to be seen.

"There," Garrett said, pulling at the sleeve of my shirt. "That's them."

He pointed towards a group of about six people who had just entered the club, all clad in black and moving across the room as if they owned the place which – if Garrett was speaking the truth – was basically true.

"So who is who again?" I mused, trying to remember the things I had seen in the case files I had taken a brief look at earlier on while looking at the group of guys who had just walk in.

"From what I read in the file......"

"What?" I yelled totally surprised. "You actually read the file?" I think it was the first time in the five months we'd been partnered up that I had actually caught Garrett doing his homework.

"Well, I needed to have something to do while you were trying to break free from prostitute Barbie," he shrugged. "Anyway......local cops can't really get a grasp on them,. The only thing they know is the names of most of the members and they have a rough idea of the pecking order within the gang. I think I recognize those guys from the photographs I saw."

"Do you have any names and ranks to put to their faces?" I hated being the one who was ill prepared. Damn Tanya Denali and her drama.

"The tall one in the middle is called Jacob Black and he's thought to be pretty high up in the ranks. Nasty piece of work though......." Garrett said, pointing at a muscular man standing in the middle of the group. He looked confident to the side of cocky and I guess women would call him handsome.

"The one to his side is Seth Clearwater," he pointed at a younger man standing beside the one called Jacob Black.

"Isn't he a little young to be in a gang?" I asked, The guy seemed like he was fresh out of highschool. Way too young to be affiliated with a gang of drug dealing murdered.

"He joined recently," Garrett explained. "There was a huge ruckus over his membership. His sister – would you believe they actually have a girl in this gang? - and that Black guy were totally opposed to it, but Sam Uley, the leader, forced his membership through."

"Then why are they together?"

"I don't know," Garrett shrugged. "I guess Black must have taken him under his wing."

"And the others?" There were about four more guys to the group, all standing a little bit to the side.

"I don't know their names. I think they must be lower down in the hierarchy," Garrett said.

"How big is this gang anyway?" I asked.

"No one knows. They think the inner circle amounts to about seven to nine people but who else is involved can't be said for certain."

"They must have some kind of guess," I said, pinching the bridge of my nose while trying to process all of the information.

"No man,"Garrett chuckled. "To Forks finest every Native American living in this town or it's vicinity is a suspected gang member."

Great. Not only were we dealing with a possible terrorist on the loose, the local police force seemed to be too stupid to do it's job.

"Found your girl though....." Garrett stated.

I followed his gaze to see Bella, the woman of my dreams, in the arms of Jacob Black.

"What the fuck happened?" I growl.

"She tripped and he caught her," Garrett explained as I watched the pair of them walk over the the reserved booth, his arm wrapped lightly around her back.

What the hell was going on? What was she doing coming on to me one moment and walking off with that....criminal the next?

Was she some kind of gangster's moll? Did she find out who I was? Did they send her here to distract me?

Apart from the professional curiosity there were other feelings coursing through me as I watched her clearly enjoy herself with Jacob Black and Seth Clearwater.

There was jealousy, a seething rage at the sight of him touching her and her responding to it. It made me want to kill him and yell at her about what she was doing to me.

There was fear because she was surrounding herself with guys who were known to stop at nothing to get what they wanted and I didn't want her to get hurt. Even if she would never crave me the way I craved her, I still didn't want her to end up damaged or murdered like that pour soul we had seen at the hospital.

Somehow I felt strangely protective of her. The mere thought of her being in peril had all my nerves stand on edge even though she didn't strike me as the kind of person who needed protection anyway.

I realized that I had never felt such a strong pull towards another person in my life and I didn't even know anything about her. All we had between us were a few awkward moments at a morgue and one hot as hell moment on the dance floor.

And now she was flirting with someone else.

I looked to see her friends still standing a few feet away from us. Their eyes looking at the same scene as ours, though with an amused kind of curiosity.

Sometimes their lips would move, almost as if they were speaking to each other, but they never took their gaze away from their friend. They would talk and laugh, but it was almost like they weren't talking and laughing with each other but with some invisible third party. It was almost as if they were using some kind of hidden communications device.....Could it be that they were actually secret agents like us?That they were running an operation here without us knowing it?

No, we would have been told. There was no way they would endanger an existing operation like that. There had to be some other explanation. But what?

"They're on the move," Garrett said, pointing down to Jacob and the girl – my girl – moving towards the door in the middle of the room.

What was she doing? Why was she leaving with him?

Blind fear and jealousy fought for dominance in my head. Had our moment meant so little to her that she was ready to just throw herself into the arms of the first guy she met after she had left me? Didn't she feel that electric current that ran through us every time we touched. Was I that revolting that she had to leave after spending only a mere five minutes with me?

But even if she didn't want me....why did she have to leave with him?

It would have been a little less hard to accept defeat for me if she hadn't left with a known criminal. If it had been any man but him.

He would hurt her, of that I was certain. Even if he treated her right – which I really doubted – being associated with him would only lead to hardship and pain and I didn't want that for her.

She deserved better.

She deserved someone who loved her, cherished her, kept her safe.

Me.

Shit.

"Her friends seem to like her action about as much as you do," Garrett spoke.

I turned to see the short spiky haired girl muttering words at the empty space in front of her at a frantic pace, the blond one scowling at the space where their friend had disappeared from sight.

After a while the short one gave up, grabbed the blonde's hand and dragged her down the stairs behind her, both of them disappearing from sight as they followed in the direction their friend had disappeared into.

"Wanna follow them?" Garrett asked.

I took off down the stairs without even answering his question. "We'll wait by the bar," I yelled over my shoulder as I craned my neck to see if I could spot any of them. The only ones I saw was the blond and the short one, lingering near the heavy iron door I had suspected their friend had disappeared behind.

If she didn't return in ten minutes I would go in, I promised myself, not just to keep her safe but also out of a professional duty to safeguard the innocent, even though I wasn't sure my angel deserved to be called an innocent

I was just deliberating the best ways to take out the security guards at the door and forcing an entry without kicking up a fuss when the door opened and I saw her emerge, the smug look on her face leaving me in no doubt of what just happened.

"I need a scotch," I barked at the nearest waiter. "Now."

He rolled his eyes but started pouring me my drink without much delay.

"You okay mate?" Garrett asked as I drowned my drink in one sip while ordering another.

"I will be," I growled, wanting him to leave me the fuck alone as I watched the three girls move towards the exit.

I caught another glimpse of her just as she was exiting the room, her eyes looking into mine with that same mixture of sadness and longing I had seen earlier today at the morgue.

Even though I knew she was lost to me I still felt myself drawn to her with all my being. Part of me rejoiced in the fact that she had emerged from behind that door unharmed and looking rather happy, the other part just lamented the loss of her.

Most of all the frustration I felt about not knowing what was going on - not knowing who's side she was really on – made me angry.

* * *

_**So....wanna know what it was like for Bella? **_

_**The next chapter will also shed some light on The Pack and the dynamics withing the gang. Will Bella be able to work her magic on Jacob or will he see right through her? And what really happened behind the iron door?**_

_**I hope to have the next chapter done by Friday but since this is a very busy week for me and I have to rewrite parts of it (in the original version of this chapter and Friday's chapter I used a different song) I don't know if I'll manage.**_

_**You know the drill right? Please let me know what you though of this one.....**_


	8. Promiscuous Boy

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

* * *

**Promiscuous boy.**

_**(Bella Swan)**_

"_Oh my God," _Alice yelled, following my gaze. _"That's Morgue Guy?" _

All I could do was nod as the hypnotizing green eyes of Totally Hot Morgue Guy kept burning into me with an intensity that both flustered and confused me.

"_What are you waiting for Bella!" _Rose scolded. _"Go have some fun!" _

It was almost like I was thrown into some kind of time warp from the moment I saw him take a few tentative paces in my direction. It was like everything around me disappeared as I stood there like a deer caught in headlights, waiting for him to make his way over to me.

"Hi," he said, flashing me a smile that made the breath hitch in my throat for a moment.

"Hi," I spoke back, my voice sounding high and unsteady like I was a teenager who had just come face to face with Orlando Bloom.

"_Bella!_" Rosalie scolded. _"If you don't start behaving like an angel right now I'm throwing my shoe at you!" _

"So we meet again," Morgue Guy chuckled, taking another small step closer to me.

I had to think of something smart to say. Not just because Rose was wearing eight inch stiletto's but also because I wanted to impress the gorgeous guy in front of me.

I took a deep breath, mustered all the courage my body was capable of and opened my mouth to let whatever words the muses would grace me with come out.

"Yes," I heard myself speak, "Funny how we keep on brushing into each other."

"_Good one Bella!"_ Alice praised. _"Now follow it up with something that will have him on his knees begging for you to fuck him senseless." _

Come again?

I couldn't help a frown from settling on my face for the slightest hint of a moment before I was able to regain control. I looked up at Morgue Guy through my lashes, hoping he hadn't caught my odd facial expression but he didn't seem to have noticed.

"It's almost as if you are following me," I added, closing the gap between us, our bodies now flush against each other.

I had little time to appreciate the feeling of our bodies touching and the strange almost electric sort of feeling that seemed to produce before he spoke again.

"I seem to remember it was you who was breaking into the morgue, not me," he almost growled before smiling apologetically. "By the way....." the devious little lopsided grin returned. "You never did tell me what you were doing there."

Damn! He had me cornered there.

"_Just stick to your story," _Alice advised._ "Charm him into believing you but get out if you have to." _

"I told you," I said, leaning into him a little more. "The stiff was a cousin of mine."

For a moment I could see the emotions dance over his face. Confusion, frustration but most of all - my own personal ally – lust.

"Am I supposed to believe that?" he chuckled. I guess his lust wasn't as strong as I had hoped it would be. That or perhaps he was just better at controlling it than your average male horn dog.

"It's your choice," I shrugged, looking for an easy way to disappear in the crowd.

He seemed to anticipate my move however – shame on me for trying to use the same trick on the same person twice in the same day – and grabbed my arm before I could run.

"_Shit,"_ I heard Alice say.

"Let go of me jackass!" I yelled, pounding my fists against his chest in an effort to get away from the vise-like grip he held me in. I soon realized that all my efforts were probably in vain. Hitting Morgue Guy felt felt like hitting a brick wall, the only difference being that brick walls usually didn't have eight packs and the most amazing pecs ever to have been sculpted by human hands. If I wasn't so pissed off right now I would have seriously debated sending his mother a thank you not on behalf of women in general just to acknowledge her for a job well done. As it was I realized that if I continued along this path the only one who would end up being hurt would be me.

"Not before you tell me what the hell is going on sweetheart," he demanded, looking down at me with a mixture of frustration, curiosity and something else.

"Please," he pleaded, his features softening as his eyes still held me spellbound. It was strange, how those amazing green orbs could pierce through my soul and reveal everything I was desperate to keep hidden and at the same time reveal so much about the person they belonged to as well.

The feelings he stirred up deep within me weren't anything I had ever felt before but even though they were foreign to me I knew them the moment they first surfaced.

Love.

Damn.

This couldn't have come at a more inconvenient time. Here I was, at a club, getting ready to seduce a criminal, when the medical examiner of my dreams walks up to me and makes me want to forget all about our mission.

Talk about crappy timing.

"Please," he repeated, his eyes never faltering in their gaze.

I wanted to tell him. I wanted him to know that I wasn't some weird necrophiliac psycho who made a habit out of breaking into hospitals. I wanted him to take me away from all of this shit and live happily ever after, popping out sweet little green eyed boys with crazy sex hair in the quiet of Suburbia. Most of all I wanted to tell him who I really was.

Wait a minute?

Was I really willing to risk my heart along with the assignment?

The answer came as a shock to me.

Yes.

"_What the hell are you doing Bella!" _I heard Rose yell in my ear. "_How can you event think about risking everything we work for – everything Carlisle has spend years building up – for a guy who works at a morgue. You don't even know his name for fuck's sake!" _

"_Rose is right Bella," _Alice said._ "I know exactly how you feel. You want to tell him, more than you want anything else in life. You want to be normal and happy and not ever end up in fucked up situations like this again." _She sounded so sad it almost broke my heart. _"But listen to me Bella....you can't do this. Not now. Not without thinking this over long and hard." _

"_Have you fun Bella," _Rose chimed in again, her voice sounding less harsh this time. _"Play with him for all I care. But know where your loyalty really lies." _

She was right of course. I owed it to Carlisle to keep the secret and complete my assignment. It was my duty, I lived for my job.

The why did I want to blow it all away on a guy I hardly knew?

But that was just it. Even though this was just the second time we met I felt as though I knew him far longer than that. Whenever he was around it was like something in my being was linked to his, something that could only blossom whenever he was around. Being around him felt like...being home, having some little space on the face of this godforsaken planet that wasn't fucked up beyond repair.

Was it so wrong for me to not want to let go of that?

I realized I must have seemed like a total idiot, staring at him like some kind of mad cow while my brain was trying to deal with the whole barrage of fucked up emotions that were screaming at it. I had to say something.

"_Make a joke," _Alice advised._ "Humor helps."_

Right.

Easier said than done.

I would have liked to see the pixie pull off a stand up comedian act while trying to juggle her love life with a dangerous and possibly life threatening mission.

"What are you....my shrink?" I realized this was probably the lamest come back I had ever come up with but at least it would get the message across.

"Nope," he replied, shooting me another one of those underwear melting half smiles. I swear, this guy should come with a health waring attached. "Just someone looking for some answers."

Damn! Why did the guy always know just what to say?

"_Get him off your back Bells,"_ Rose growled._ "He's asking way too many questions." _

"_No, she's fine,"_ Alice disagreed._ "Let her play with him some more. She has to learn how to do this stuff." _

I loved Alice, even though she could be scary when she went all girly on you.

"_You're cleaning up the mess if she screws up," _I could hear Rose shrug.

Thanks for the vote of confidence bitch!

I knew I had to come up with a killer response and I had to do it soon.

It's just....complicated," I sighed, trying desperately to explain my fucked up position to him without spilling the beans. "And anyway........" I let my voice trail off a little before I continued. "What happened to men falling for mysterious women? I thought you guys went crazy for that shit?"

"_Good one babes!"_ Alice complimented.

"Just cut the crap and tell me why you were there," he growled, frustration clear in his voice. I guess Alice was the only one who was impressed with my little come back.

"I can't," I sighed, both happy and disappointed with his unwillingness to let this go. "Not even if I wanted to........" I had to find some compromise. "But you have to believe me when I say that I'm not a bad person." I pleaded, trying to make him understand at least one part of this fucking mess I had landed myself in.

"_Remember what you are here for Bella,"_ Rose growled.

I shot a glare in her direction. Why couldn't she just back the fuck off if she had nothing constructive to add?

"I want to believe you," he said, his hands gently cupping my face as he looked into my eyes again.

I tried to convey everything I wanted him to know even though I knew it would be pointless. What more could I get from him than just an hour or so of fun before he ran back to his dead people and I would throw myself into the arms of a criminal?

"I guess that's a start," I said, trying to smile.

"Would you dance with me?" His question was almost shocking after the intense moments we had just shared..

Shit.

Dancing.

Something that wasn't exactly my forte.

I let my eyes flicker to the balcony where Alice and Rose were standing, nodding fiercely. I knew they wanted me to get more practice in dancing, especially in situations like this, but somehow I didn't feel like subjecting Morgue Guy to my poorly developed skills.

"_Don't be such a baby Bella,"_ Alice teased. _"You were doing fine earlier." _

"Okay?" I said, my reply coming out more like a question than an answer as I looked up for help once more.

I closed my eyes for a moment, hoping it would empty my head and allow me to concentrate. Luckily the song that had just started was an older one and one of my favorites. At least that gave me something to work with.

"_Use your assets Bella,"_ Alice sang._ "You know what they are." _

"_This is going to be easy Bells,"_ Rose chimed in, her voice having lost the icy coldness of before. _"He's practically drooling over you already!"_

I could feel his body near me, the presence of him making every nerve end tingle with an almost electric sensation. The almost overwhelming feeling of lust it caused making it that much harder for me to concentrate.

He pulled me closer against him, enveloping me with his strength and the sweet scent of him. I rested my head against the strong muscles of his chest, breathing him in as we set our pace for the dance.

"_Focus Bella," _Rose's voice blared in my ear. "_Try relaxing your hips a little more. Right now it kind of looks like you really need to pee. Give yourself over to the music and to Morgue Guy. Let him guide you."_

When I did as Rosalie told me I felt....relaxed, if that was at all possible at a moment such as this. He had some strange way of making me feel at ease, like nothing really mattered when we were close.

Well, nothing expect the feeling of his body against mine.

I could feel he was enjoying this as much as I was, the evidence of it pressing prominently against my stomach as our movements gradually changed from innocent to wildly erotic. The way his fingers dug into the flesh of my ass as our hips ground against one another made my brain go into overdrive trying to come up with all possibles scenarios involving those fingers, those long and undoubtedly dexterous fingers, and a part of my anatomy that seemed to have taken over my body for now.

"_Quit drooling over him Bella,"_Alice scolded as an involuntary moan left my lips before I could stop it. _"You're supposed to make him weak in the knees. Not the other way around." _

Fucking know it all pixie!

"_Work the music Bella,"_ Rose chimed in._ "Do a little booty drop or something." _

Great. Like I would be able to manage anything that didn't make me look like I was crapping in the woods.

"_Just try it Bella,"_ Alice encouraged._ "I know you have it in you."_

I sucked in a huge breath before slowly swiveling my hips to the ground as I started moving down to the rhythm of the chorus.

"_Nice,"_ Rose praised as I found myself almost face to face with the result of my efforts. "_Now look up." _

The sight of him, his eyes almost closed and his lips slightly parted as he looked down on me almost made me cum as my brain once again came up with the most wonderful images of that same face in different scenarios.

Focus Bella. Use the effect you obviously have on him to your advantage!

I slowly started my way back up, making sure to bush my breast slightly over the front of his pants eliciting the most wonderful groan I had ever heard in my life.

"_Much better Bella!"_ Rose praised. _"Now if you turned your back on him, you know....the position we were dancing in earlier, you may be able to relax even further!" _

"_Ooooooh!" _Alice yelled "_Are we talking positions already? What did I miss?"_

He seemed to have gotten the same idea as Rose because as soon as my face was level with his again he spun me around so that my back was now pressed against his chest and his hands rested on the front of my hips, dangerously close to my heat.

I had to say this new position had its advantages.....

His hands guided my hips as we swayed to the compelling rhytm of the music and I could feel his breath tickling the skin of my neck as he leaned in.

Oh my God, he's going to kiss me.

My body was working itself up into a frenzy once again as his lips hovered inches above my skin, driving me to the brink of insanity. If the guy wasn't going to kiss me soon I might just spontaneously selfcombust. I could just see the headlines in front of me: 'mousy female self detonates after dancing with City Morgue employee.' My former buddies from the force would be having a field day.

As if to make matters even worse he started singing along to the music, his deep husky voice reverberating to my body before settling straight in between my legs.

Dear lord. How was a girl to survive this?

_Promiscuous girl_

_Wherever you are_

_I'm all alone_

_And it's you that I want_

"Quit acting like a nun at a strip club and do something!" Rose hissed.

I swallowed before doing the only thing that seemed logical: give him a taste of his own medicine.

_Promiscuous boy_

_You already know_

_That I'm all yours_

_What you waiting for?_

I was surprised by the firmness of my voice. I had expected it to have turned to goo along with the rest of my body the minute he pulled me against him, but surprisingly enough I was even able to keep tune.

_Promiscuous girl_

_You're teasing me_

_You know what I want_

_And I got what you need_

I couldn't help but chuckle as he sang that part, my hands unable to behave themselves for another minute and weaving through those deliciously unruly lock of hair as I sang the last bit of the chorus.

_Promiscuous boy_

_Let's get to the point_

_Cause we're on a roll_

_Are you ready?_

I turned in his arms again, the effort in keeping myself from attacking him almost painful as I settled my head against his shoulder again as we moved, suspended on the edge of pure bliss.

His hands resumed their teasing as one of them sneaked down and rested on my ass while the other cupped my breast, making it impossible for me to suppress a deep moan as I felt his fingers ghost over my hardened peak.

I groaned again, this time with displeasure, when I heard Rose's voice in my ear, ending the few moments of carefree happiness that I had been given.

"_As much as I hate to interrupt a good dry humping session when I see one, you have work to do,"_ Alice spoke._ "The Pack just arrived." _

Damn. The feeling of being pulled back into harsh reality after those blissful moments on the dance floor was almost painful but I had to keep it together if I wanted to say goodbye to Morgue Guy without him thinking I was blowing him off or something like that.

Luckily for me the song was just coming to and end, giving me a good excuse to walk away.

I turned so that I was facing him again and reached up to his face again. The way his breathing hitched and his lips parted slightly almost made me think he was expecting me to kiss him.

Not that I didn't want to – in fact, my whole being was screaming at me to do it, to taste him, to close every gap that still existed between us - I knew that if I gave in to temptation now I would never be able to pry myself away from him again.

Instead I opted for the save option and brought my lips to his ear. "Thanks for the dance hotshot," I purred, feeling him shiver against me.

"My pleasure," he muttered, brushing his nose along my neck again. It almost felt like he was breathing me in.

With a lot of effort I managed to get my body to disentangle itself from his, my whole being grunting with displeasure as I moved away.

"Wait? Are you leaving?" he yelled, grabbing my arm to prevent me from moving away.

"Duty calls," I sighed, making use of the confusion that appeared on his face to loosen my arm from his hold and dive into the crowd.

"Wait!" he called, as he pushed his way through the crowds after me.

"What?" I knew that of I couldn't shake him off right now he would keep following me. If he did that I would have to resort to more drastic ways of getting him to leave and frankly, I didn't know if I could do that.

"You didn't even tell me your name," he laughed.

I breathed a sigh of relive. At least _that_ I could give him. "Bella," I said, smiling up at him. "My name is Bella."

"Edward," he stated, taking my hand in his and pressing his lips to it. "Thanks for the dance Bella."

"Thank you Edward," I replied, before walking away from his again.

"_You did well there Bella," _Alice said_. "I'm sorry we had to be so hard on you before." _

"Don't sweat it," I shrugged as I carefully started to ascend the stairs. "I knew why you hand to do it. What is Edward doing?"

"_Morgue Guy is currently ogling your cute little ass,"_ Rose replied. _"You wanna go in for the kill?"_

"What do you mean?"

"_Time to work one of those assets of yours Bella!"_ she giggled._ "Flip your hair." _

"What?" I yelled. I didn't know if I had heard her correctly. How on earth could flipping my hair over my shoulder ever be seductive in any way?

"_You heard me girl!_" Rose snorted. _"Flip your fucking hair."_

I did as I was told, turning my head briskly to make my hair swirl around my head as it turned towards him.

The way he looked, his mouth slightly hanging open and his eyes glued to mine and sparkling with an intensity that almost made me come apart at the seams made me realize that something as mundane as flipping your hair could in fact be slightly erotic.

I smiled at him one last time and blew him a kiss before I ordered myself to take the last few steps up the stairs that would take me away from him.

Edward.

"I'm so sorry for going all emo on you guys," I apologized as soon as I got to Alice and Rosalie.

"Don't mention it," Rose said, swatting my shoulder. "We've all bee there. Let's just get on with the main event."

We spend about five minutes going over our plans again before I made my way downstairs via the other staircase at the other end of the balcony. This way I would end up right in front of the members of The Pack that were currently assembled at the bottom of said staircase.

I chuckled to myself as I made my way downstairs, careful not to trip too soon. For once my clumsiness would actually come as a benefit.

I pushed all feelings of guilt and sordidness aside. I would deal with them later. Thinking too much wouldn't help me right now. I had a job to do.

Once I reached the bottom three steps I carefully made myself slip, falling in the direction of the gang members in front of me. Fortunately for me they might have been black hearted murderers but their hearts weren't so black that they didn't want to keep a girl from falling.

"Thank you so much!" I stuttered, trying to make it sound like I was some kind of bashful virgin as I readjusted my clothes and wriggled out of the arms of the gang member we had set our sights on."

"Don't mention it," he shrugged, grinning at me. "It's not every day a gorgeous girl such as you literally falls into my arms."

I tried to feel embarrassed in stead of smug but found it actually very difficult to summon up a blush. Apparently my traitor body would only do those kinds of things when I didn't want it to.

Great.

"Thanks again," I stammered. "If you hadn't been there I might have broken something."

"It's nothing really," he laughed. "By the way....what's your name?"

"Sabrina Duncan," I introduced myself, flashing my best innocent smile.

"_Good work!" _Rose praised.

"Well, hello Sabrina," the taller man greeted me, flashing me a row of perfectly white teeth. "How would you like to come sit with us for a while."

"_Play hard to get," _Alice warned.

"I don't know," I said, looking around me in a way that I hoped was slightly skittish. "My friends will worry about where I am."

"If your friends find out you're with us they'll be ecstatic," the smaller man persuaded. "Come on, you know you want to."

They definitely weren't bothered by any false sense of modesty about themselves. The way the walked around the club, the mob parting like the red sea, you'd almost think they were royalty.

I guess in a way they were, if only in this club, in their own little kingdom.

"Please, take a seat," The taller one said, indicating towards the bench in the middle of a large booth. "I'll get you something to drink."

"So what is a girl like you doing in a place like this?" the smaller one asked as soon as the taller one was gone. "I'm Seth, by the way."

"Well, Seth," I flashed him a nervous little smile, "me and my friends heard some people talk about this club and we figured we might as well try it out ourselves."

"Good choice," he chuckled.

"_Let him talk about himself," _Alice urged me.

"So, what is it you do?" I asked.

"Me and my friends run this club," he chuckled.

"Really?" I tried to make my eyes as large and surprised as I could. "As in you own the place?"

"Yep," he said. "Neat huh?"

"Very," I said as the taller one came back with two beers and some pink concoction he placed in front of me. I took one sip of it, trying desperately to hide my disgust. It tasted like they had just poured some liquor over a pack of sugar. Not my taste at all.

"_That stuff looks disgusting,"_ Rose's voice sounded in my ear.

"It is," I whispered.

"What?" the taller one asked, his eyes tightening to slits.

"I was just saying this drink is lovely," I said, trying to swallow another sip of the vile brew and ignore the sound of Rose and Alice giggling in my ear.

"Oh. Thanks," he shrugged. "I'm Jake." He stuck out his hand. "Jacob Black."

"Nice to meet you," I replied. "So do you work here as well?"

"You could say that," he chuckled, scooting a little closer to me and resting his arm on the backrest behind me.

"_Don't pry,"_ Rose warned. "_He'll see right through you if you do." _

"It must be nice to work here," I remarked, figuring that would be safe enough.

"It is," Jacob and Seth both nodded.

We talked some more about the club and ourselves, all three of us steering clear of any subjects that might become 'difficult'. Jacob kept inching closer to me all through our conversation, in the end even being so bold as to pick up a lock of my hair and play with it, while his other hand, the one that was now draped around me, ran up and down my bare arm.

It felt nice, though having him touch me felt nothing like when Morgue Guy – Edward - touched me. You could tell Jacob had considerable experience with the female body and all it's preferences but the spark wasn't there.

I wondered if I would ever see Edward again. I hoped he had left after our dance because I would hate for him to see me now, sandwiched between two other guys only minutes after coming on to him. He would probably misinterpret it.

Hell, what was I thinking. There was no way a guy like him would even be interested in a girl like me.

He was too perfect.

Too good.

Too innocent.

A guy like him deserved someone better, a nice innocent virgin who could love him with whole her heart and who didn't have to sneak off to seduce information out of other guys the moment he had turned his back on her.

"So Sabrina," Jacob interrupted my thoughts. "Would you like to see how we run this club?"

I looked at him in confusion. "What do you mean?"

"_Good one Bells!"_ Rose said. "_I think you have him convinced of your innocence!" _

"Jake!" Seth called. "You know you can't do that! What if Sam finds out? He'll kill you."

"Let him try," Jacob smirked. "And who says he's going to find out anyway? He said himself he'd be 'busy' with Emily all night."

"You can't do this man," Seth repeated, shaking his head in horror as if Jacob had just suggested blowing up a primary school.

"Watch me," Jacob half growled. He struck me as the kind of man who didn't let a little danger keep him from doing the things he wanted. Seth's horror might have only egged him on. "This club is as much mine as it is his anyway." He stood, offering his hand to me. "You coming?"

"Sure," I replied. "But are you sure it's okay though? I wouldn't want you to get into trouble."

"Don't worry your pretty head about it," he soothed, leading me through the masses, and I had to fight the urge not to take a swing at him. Pretty head indeed.

"_Go Bella!"_ Alice cheered in my ear.

"_I would have punched him for saying that," _Rose hissed. "_Nice job in keeping your temper in check."_

"You taking a stranger upstairs?" a huge man standing in front of a sturdy looking iron door said.

"Yep," Jacob replied.

"Does Sam know?"

"Leave it Colin!" Jacob growled. "It's about time the board room saw some action. You know that as well as I do."

"_God , would you believe that guy?"_ Rose growled in my ear.

"Okay," the man – Colin – said, moving aside. "But you'll deal with the shit that's going to ensue."

"Don't worry about it," Jacob chuckled, patting the man on the back before returning his attention to me. "My lady," he crooned, holding the massive iron door open for me. "You can go ahead, I'll be right behind you," he said, pointing at the spiral staircase in front of me.

I started climbing, cautious not to fall and break my neck on the iron steps. When I was about halfway up a screeching in my ears alerted me to the fact that my ear piece was malfunctioning.

I looked behind me, afraid that Jacob would have heard something. Concealed as the whole thing might have been, the piercing sounds the damned thing was emitting at the moment would have been heard even by a blind man.

Luckily for me Jacob had fallen behind and climbed the stairs completely ignorant of who it was that he had in front of him. I fumbled with my ear, trying to make it look like I was playing with the little star shaped ear buds Alice had selected for me when all I was doing was frantically trying to get the earpiece going again.

"Great," I muttered to myself when all I could hear was static electricity. It meant I had to do this all on my own.

When I reached the top of the stairs a huge entrance, closed off by a set of huge wooden double doors appeared in sight. It looked almost like the entrance to a throne room or something.

"This is our office," Jacob announced, producing a set of keys and opening the door. "Our board room."

The room was big, it's shape mirroring the shape up the club downstairs. Judging from the faint thumbs of the beats we were right over it.

Most of the space was taken up by a huge table, standing in the middle of the room. A total of nine chairs stood around it. Four on either of the long sides and one at the head. That last one must have been Sam's seat but what I really wanted to find out was where Jacob was seated. Judging from the way the seats were arranged I figured they had a very strict pecking order.

I continued my survey of the room. It had very few exits, in fact, the door right behind me was the only one visible. There were windows in one of the walls but, from what I could see, they had been boarded up with the same kind of study, impenetrable wood that was used for the doors.

The rest of the room was almost bare. There were no paintings, no maps or anything else but a few old fashioned chandeliers that decorated the bare whitewashed walls. I guessed they must have gone for the minimalist look because the only other decoration that adorned the room was a huge fireplace that made up most of the back wall, the fire that was lighted in it being the only way of illuminating the room except for candles.

It looked like I had stepped into some kind of time warp, like I had been transported to some kind of strange alternate universe. It made me think of Narnia and I half expected a faun or a werewolf to come walking out of some dark corner.

To think that this room, stripped of every modern commodity, was the room from which The Pack ran it's empire of drugs and violence was……unreal to say the least.

I jumped when Jacob cleared his throat behind me. "So, what do you think?'

"I-It's….erm……impressive?"

"That it is!" he chuckled, walking towards the table and letting his fingers glide over the smooth surface. It reminded me of why I had come here in the first place.

I decided that if I wanted to get any valuable information out of this guy I would have to play into his vanity, his self-confidence. I tried to remember the photographs I had seen of the members of the pack, Jacob always looking a little bit unhappy.

I wondered why that was. Was it because somewhere deep down he knew what he was doing was wrong? Or was it because he wanted more power?

I sighed. I would find that out soon enough.

That is…..if I didn't overplay my hand and lived through all of this.

Having lost communication with the other two angels made me more nervous than I would ever dare to admit. They weren't just my prompters in this fucked up little play we were performing, they were also my lifeline in case anything went wrong.

I took in a deep breath, trying to steady myself for what was to come. This was my job. I had to do this.

I could do this.

Go Bella.

Who sits here?" I asked, pointing to the big high-backed chair at the head of the table. I took care to make my voice sound as innocent as it had been when we were still downstairs, even though my heart was pounding in my throat.

"This is where we make the important decisions about the club……" Jacob went on, pretending he hadn't heard my question.

Sore spot. Bingo!

"Who sits here?" I repeated, placing my hands on either side of the back of the chair.

"You see, there's a lot more to running a club that meets the eye," Jacob still going on as if nothing had happened, though I detected a little hint of annoyance in the tone of his voice and his eyes seemed to betray that as well. "You have to deal with suppliers, bouncers, disgruntled customers, police officers watching your every move just to see if something dodgy is going on at the club……"

"I bet you don't sit here…." I interrupted him again.

"I sit here," he half growled, half spoke, pulling out the first chair on the right hand side. "At the right hand of the master."

"So, you're like the vice-president of the club?" I asked. Crushed ambition would explain why he looked so unhappy in most of the pictures we had of him.

"You could say that," he said, walking over to me. "Now why don't we just cut the crap and you tell me what you really came for?"

I realized too late I had let him trap me. His arms rested on either side of my shoulders so that his entire body had me pinned to the table.

"What do you mean?" I tried, while looking for a way out. I had realized that something in this room must have blocked the transmitter so I knew getting help from the other angels was out of the question. I could only hope they had realized something was off and would come to my aid or I could see this ending very badly.

"Come on Sabrina, if that is your real name, you know as well as I do that you're not just some innocent little girl," his voice sounded low and threatening.

"I'm not?"

"I've seen your little friends at the club," he chuckled, "did you really know I didn't peg you for one of Carlisle's little sluts the moment you stumbled into sight?"

Wait a minute.....How the fuck did he know about Carlisle?Just as the though entered my head I remembered how the pack had almost killed one of us. They must have had their eyes on Cullen Investigations for quite some time.

So much for being inconspicuous.

"Then why did you let me come here?" I couldn't believe he had taken me here, gone to all this trouble, just to have me blow my cover. From what I'd heard about The Pack they didn't do anything the hard way if it could be done simple.

"I just wanted to have my fun," he shrugged, something in his eyes telling me I had hit a mark.

"That's not it, is it?" I asked, looking up into his eyes. "If you wanted to kill me you would have taken me out the back and disposed of me there. You want to talk."

"Shut up!" his eyes were seething with rage now and I could see his whole body tremble.

"You're not happy about the way things are going. You want out." There must be something wrong with me. Here I was, held at the mercy of someone who could snap my neck with his pinky and all I did was egg him on when I should be trying to come out of this unharmed.

"I SAID SHUT UP!" he yelled, his fist slamming down on the table behind me.

"What if I was to offer you a way out," I grabbed the opportunity he had given to me. "What if you and, those who are with you, could get a way out of this mess."

"There is no way out," he barked, moving away from me.

"There is," I continued, my plan developing as I spoke. "I can't guarantee you'll come out of this smelling of roses, but I know you won't exactly be smelling of shit either."

"As if you have the power to keep me out of jail!" he spat, marching up to me again and grabbing me roughly by my neck. I realized that if I didn't come up with anything that would have him convinced right now, it would all be over. After all.....he did have a point there.

"I don't," I stated as calmly as I could while feeling the pressure of his fingers build up. "But I know those who have."

The pressure his fingers where exercising on my windpipe diminished slightly while he mulled over my proposition. It was a good thing too because it was getting harder and harder to breathe.

"Who says they'll do as you say."

"No one," I admitted, the pressure increasing again immediately. "But I know my friends and I know how eager the police are to get their hands on Uley."

The pressure on my neck diminished again before he removed his hands entirely. This meant he was giving my proposition serious thought.

I remember what Rosalie had told me about this. It was another one of those make or break moments. If I would pressure him now he would back away and almost certainly kill me. On the other hand, if I gave him too much space to think he might see the insanity of my proposal and kill me as well. It was a fine line to tread, made even finer because I still didn't know what had lead him to consider my proposal: some form of kindness in his black heart or blind ambition.

"It's up to you," I said cautiously, digging into the back pocket of my skirt. "Here's my card. If you want to talk, talk. If you think the risk you're taking is too big, don't talk."

I held my card out to him and – much to my relief – he took it.

"Get out," he said, his voice not exactly angry. "Knock twice on the door downstairs and Collin will open it." He turned around, his roguishly handsome face glowing with the flames of the fire, making him look more dangerous.

It would be unwise to disturb him now, now that he was probably pondering my proposition, so I made my way out of the room and down the stairs as quickly and quietly as I could, just happy to have escaped the board room relatively unscathed.

"Oh God Bella!" A small spiky haired projectile flung herself in my arms as soon as I was clear of the door. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine Alice," I chuckled. "Never better."

Alice didn't seem satisfied with my statement because she continued to check every appendage for possible damage, ending with my neck.

"Fine?" Rose, who was standing behind Alice growled. "How do you explain the huge paw-shaped bruises on your neck then?"

"So there were a few tense moments," I admitted. "But I think I did it."

"Did you ever pay attention to a word Carlisle has been saying?" Alice yelled. "Safety first." The way she said it, stomping her foot after every word while glaring daggers at me, had me using everything I had in me to keep myself from laughing.

"Rose?" I needed some help if I was to escape the wrath of mother superior.

"Don't look at me," Rose growled. "I agree with the pixie. You knew you had to get out of there the moment your ear piece started malfunctioning. You can't just go running off by yourself."

"Sorry," I sighed. I knew they had been worried sick while I was away. Taking dangers was one thing – a thing that sometimes couldn't be avoided when you worked for Carlisle – but going off alone was a capital offense in angel land. "Please don't make me share a desk with Lauren."

"Let's just go home," Alice offered. "We'll save the yelling for tomorrows debriefing. Let's have an night with Jack and Johnny."

Right before we left the club I caught a glimpse of a pair of green eyes framed by a beautiful mess of reddish brown hair, disappearing into the crowd almost as soon as I saw it. There was no escaping the anger those eyes had held when they had settled on mine for the briefest of moments though.

The knowledge that he – Edward - was out there, thinking badly of me almost broke my heart.

It was stupid. I knew that. We had never been in a position where I could have given my heart to him so how could he have held the power to break it?

This must have just been some foolish girly crush and I should be glad that it was over now. Love was messy and distracting and I couldn't use any distractions right now. We had a case to solve.

Still those green eyes kept on haunting me all the way home and I knew that it would be some time before I would be able to close my eyes and not see them, and the rest of him for that matter, in front of me.

"You're not still thinking about Morgue Guy, are you?" Alice asked as we installed ourselves in the living room of our apartment with an ample amount of liquor and a couple of girly movies.

"No, of course not," I said, trying to sound as insulted as I could.

The way she rolled her eyes in response let me know I wasn't doing a very good job though.

About an hour and a bottle of Jack Daniels later Alice was standing on the armrest of the sofa singing along to Stage Beauty.

_Oh, mother, oh, mother, oh, what shall I do?_

_I've married a man who's unable to screw!_

_My troubles are many my pleasures are small_

_For I've married a man who has no balls at all!_

"I love that girl wit hall my heart but she can't sing to save her life," Rose groaned, covering her ears right before Alice launched into the chorus, motioning for us to sing along.

We joined her in the chorus, hoping she would shut up soon if we gave her what she wanted. In the end she fell off the sofa while trying to dance along to the rhythm of the song and landed on the floor with a loud thud.

"You okay pixie?" Rose hiccuped.

The only answer we got was a middle finger that appeared over the edge of the armrest.

"She'll live," Rose giggled, turning to me.

I nearly missed the sound of my mobile phone bleeping in the midst of all the commotion. I grabbed it from the table to see I'd received a new text message.

_Joe's Diner. Noon Tomorrow. Come alone._

I guessed that meant Jacob was game.

* * *

_**I'm so sorry for not updating on Friday. As I said before, times are incredibly busy for me right now and that leaves me with little time to write and/or edit. Unfortunately this week is going to be much the same and since my girls are pulling a Dr. Phil-type intervention to get me away from my stacks of papers, tests and whatnot on Friday prospects for a second update this week are gloomy.**_

_**To top it all off I was thrown off my horse on Saturday (serves me right for developing fanfic ideas while racing around on horseback. I'm fine though apart from a few bruises to my shoulder, rib and most of all my ego......**_

_**So.......what do we think of Jacob? Can he be trusted? The next chapter will tell us more about him and will make some more progress with the plot.**_

_**You may have recognized a few things I used from the Charlie's Angels series and movies and the bit of Tomb Raider I worked in. The song Alice is singing was taken from the movie Stage Beauty (go see it, it's amazing and funny) but it is an actual song which has a lot more verses along the same lines as the ones I'm making Alice sing. **_

_**To wrap up the insanely long AN my usual request for you to leave me your thoughts on this chapter and/or the story in general.**_


	9. Love or Confusion?

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

* * *

**Love of confusion?**

_**(Bella Swan)**_

I walked into the diner the next morning to see he had already arrived, his tall and muscular frame almost towering over the edge of the booth he was sitting in.

"Sabrina," he greeted, his eyebrows arched as he emphasized the name. "How nice to meet you again."

"Jacob," I nodded, taking my seat. "Let's get started." I wasn't one for false pleasantries. This was a business meeting, nothing more. He had something I wanted and I could give him something he wanted in return. No need to act like we were going to be best friends forever.

"Not so fast!" he chuckled. "Do you have a train to catch or something?"

"No, I guess not," I sighed, apparently he wanted to do the whole friendship thing. "So what do you wanna do? Discuss the weather or something?"

I couldn't imagine any other subject to discuss with a known criminal. Politics seemed out of the question since it was bound to make for a lively discussion and I didn't want to have to engage in hand to hand combat with this guy in the middle of a crowded diner.

From what I had seen of him he didn't strike me as a very cultured man either so books and serious music were out as well and discussion fluffy little animals with someone who was suspected to have ordered murders sounded preposterous even to me.

"Whatever," he shrugged. "I ordered lunch. Should be here sometime soon."

Right on cue two women, both carrying huge trays filled with all kinds of lunch foods and a large pot of coffee walked up to our table and began placing everything in front of us. There were sandwiches filled with a variety of sweet and savory fillings, pastries and a selection of fresh fruit.

"I didn't know what you liked so I ordered a whole bunch," he shrugged. "Pick what you like. I'll eat the rest."

"You're going to eat all of that?" I yelled, unable to keep the shock out of my voice. I could manage a sandwich and a bit of fruit, perhaps even a small pastry if I was really hungry. To eat the whole table full of food would be madness. Suicide.

Wait a minute? Was that what he was trying to do? Spill his guts before making them explode by pumping insane amounts of food into them?

"What would be in it for me?" he asked, his mouth still filled with food, after we had eaten in silence for a while.

"I'm a private investigator, not a cop," I explained. "I can't promise you anything."

"Then I'm not talking to you."

"Why not?"

"Are you kidding me?" he laughed, a few pieces of chewed on bread flying over the table. "This is valuable information I have here. I'm not about to go spill my guts just so you'll smile at me."

He took another bite of his food. "I mean.....you're pretty and all that, but not that pretty," he added. "No offense."

"None taken," I shrugged. "So why did you call me then?"

"I thought you were a cop."

"I said I wasn't."

"People lie."

"I don't."

"How the fuck was I supposed to know?" he snorted. "I'm sorry for letting you haul your pretty little ass over here for nothing."

"It may not be for nothing," I said, fishing my phone out of my pocket. "As I said last night......a friend of mine works as a detective in this town. I could give her a call."

"And have her arrest me?" he spat. "I think not."

"She'll keep an open mind about this," I tried. "I promise you'll walk out of here free as a bird." I knew there was no way I could promise him that and I knew he was probably well aware of that as well, but somehow I didn't think that would stop him. He seemed on a mission.

"Make the call."

Fortunately Angela was able to come almost immediately and she offered to take someone from the DA's office, someone with actual deal making authority, with her.

Jacob agreed to all of this as long as we met his terms which were rather simple: he wasn't setting foot into any police station until the rest of The Pack was behind bars and he wouldn't sign anything until that had happened either.

I assumed that was because he feared the wrath of his former buddies if they ever found out he had ratted out on them. I hadn't been an angel for long but I had been around long enough to know what The Pack was capable of. If Sam ever found out Jacob was involved in all of this things would get really ugly.

"I'm not doing time," Jacob stated, his arms crossed in front of his chest, as soon as Angela and Zafrina Southerlyn, assistant district attorney, had taken their seats at our table. We had moved a little further to the back after I had made the call, Jacob insisting that he would only talk if no one would be able to see him.

"I don't think I can guarantee that," Zafrina replied.

"Then you won't get to put The Pack behind bars," Jacob spat back. All of his roguish charms appeared to have disappeared as soon as Angela and Zafrina had walked into the diner.

"Then what kind of deal do you suggest?" Zafrina asked, sarcasm lacing her voice. I could tell she wasn't one to joke around just for the hell of it. Her presence in itself was imposing, her tanned skin and thick dark hair making her look more like some scary amazon warrior than a sophisticated lawyer.

"I give you everything you need to know. Names, dates, witnesses, weapons......everything," he banged his fist on the table with every word. "In exchange for that you cut me a deal that doesn't involve serving time."

"And you think a judge would just believe you because of your pretty brown eyes?" Zafrina smirked.

"No," Jacob shrugged. "There are others who are willing to testify under oath."

"How many?"

"Two," Jacob explained. "Same deal goes for them."

"Who says you're not going to walk out of that court room and take over Uley's spot as leader of The Pack?"

"You'll just have to believe me on my pretty brown eyes," Jacob chuckled. "And if you don't.....why would I be willing to give away all of our trade secrets if I wanted to do that? It would be plain stupid."

"I'll have to discuss this with my superiors," Zafrina sighed. I could tell she was eager – very eager – to prosecute these men and put them behind bars but I also understood how she couldn't give him a 'get out of jail free card' just like that.

"One other thing," Jacob barked as Angela and Zafrina were getting ready to leave again. "I don't like talking to cops or lawyers, they use to many big words. If I talk, I talk to her." He pointed at me.

"Out of the question," Zafrina spat.

"Take it or leave it."

"You talk to her and a detective of your choosing and all conversations will be recorded on tape," Zafrina offered.

"I talk to her and a tape recorder," Jacob retorted.

"Deal," Zafrina said, sticking out her hand.

"I want to see it all in writing before I say anything," Jacob warned. "And you better not be shitting with me."

"What do you take me for!" Zafrina spat back repulsed. "I work for the District Attorney's office, not for some back hand shyster lawyer!"

"You're still a lawyer," Jacob shrugged. "I want my copy of the deal before I say anything."

"If you say so," Zafrina sighed. "Meet us here same time tomorrow."

"My pleasure," Jacob grinned, rising from his seat and walking towards the exit. "It was nice doing business with you," he yelled over his shoulder before he walked out of the diner.

"Well, I guess I'll see you tomorrow then," I said, standing up as well.

"Yeah," Jacob grinned, he seemed a little eager for our next meeting. "See you tomorrow Sabrina."

I had a feeling I was being watched while I walked back to my car but no matter how often I looked I never saw anyone. It must have been my imagination. Perhaps I had been around criminals too long.

When I checked my messages before pulling out of the parking lot I noticed I had one new message from Carlisle.

_It's Carlisle, Angel. Time to go to work."_

The feeling that I was being followed never went away while I drove to the offices of Cullen Investigations but no mater how hard I tried I could never spy anything or anyone on my tail long enough to support that suspicion.

In the end I came to the conclusion that either my mind was playing tricks on me or whoever was following me was doing a pretty damn good job at it. Neither of them conclusions I really liked entertaining.

When I reached the building I pulled my phone out of the pocket of my jeans and dialed Alice's number.

"The amazing Alice speaking? How can I help you?" I heard her giggle.

"Hey Ally, it's me," I spoke. "Are you there yet?"

"I'm walking into Bosley's office as we speak," Alice replied.

"Can you do me a favor and pull up the surveillance tapes from outside the office real quick?" I asked. "I have a feeling I'm being followed but whoever it is...the motherfucker sure knows what he's doing."

"Sure honey," Alice said and I could hear the sound of her fingers over the keyboard of a computer in the background. "Which side should I focus on?"

"Left. I'm pulling into the parking lot right now."

"I see you," she said, as I parked my car and exited quickly to take a look around. "Are there any vehicles I should focus my attention on?"

"Not that I know of," I said, feeling a little ridiculous as I stood on the sidewalk looking at the cars passing by. Perhaps it had just been in my head?

The I saw it, a flash of silver coming at me with a dazzling speed. I had seen that one before, or at least I thought I had. It was a new model Volvo, one you didn't see that many off, in a shiny silver color that kind of stood out amongst the muted colors people preferred over here.

"Alli, the silver car!" I panted into my phone.

"Got it," she replied immediately. "I've got the number plate. I'm checking it against the records of the DMV right now."

I tried to see who was in the car as it sped past me but between the speed and the tinted windows there was nothing I could make out.

As I saw the car disappear I suddenly remembered wheer I had seen a similar car before.

The hospital parking lot.

Edward.

He had a Silver Volvo just like the one that just flashed by.

No.

That was silly. Really.

Why would a medical examiner be following a girl around town unless he was some scary kind of stalker? Edward didn't strike me as the scary stalker type so he couldn't have been inside that car.

It had to be someone else.

There were bound to be more shiny silver Volvo's cruising the streets of Forks. This was just a coincidence.

Still.....a coincidence worth looking into.

"That's strange...." I heard Alice mutter in the background.

"What is?"

"The number plate isn't registered in the DMV's records."

That was indeed strange. Very strange.

"Wait," I panted, sprinting towards the entrance. "I'll be up in a minute."

I sprinted past Lauren who was hanging over her desk while filing her nails and looking utterly bored.

"Hi Lauren!" I panted as I launched myself up the stairs.

I faintly heard her mumble something resembling the word 'bitch'. She still hadn't forgiven me for taking her place after she had been suspended from active duty for pretty much raping an important client.

It was probably a shame because I could see she would have made a damn good angel in time. She looked like she could pack a punch and her scowls were fierce enough to make even the most hardened criminals back the fuck down when they saw her coming at them.

"So what were you saying about the car?" I wheezed as I barged into Bosley's office.

Luckily this time the room was lacking in sexual activity. I didn't think that in my current condition I would have been able to keep my lunch in if I had found Bosley and Rose going for round two.

They were all gathered around Alice who was still typing away furiously, her brows scrunched up in frustration.

"There's no fucking record of this care even existing!" she growled, slamming the lid of her laptop shut.

"Did you see who was in the car?" Rose asked.

"Tinted windows," I said. "Did you try hacking into traffic police records?"

"Of course I did," Alice snarled.

"Do you think it has something to do with the case?" Emmett intervened.

"Well duh!" Rosalie spat. "The girl just spend the best part of her morning talking a known criminal into spilling his guts on his criminal friends to the police. Who do you think it was? Santa trying to find out what she would like for Christmas?"

"I don't like this at all," Emmett growled, looking at Alice who was still frantically trying to find any information on the mysterious Volvo. "What if they know where you live?"

"Well," Rosalie purred, scooting closer to him. "Then you'd just have to come over tonight to make sure we're safe."

Alice turned around to me, acting like she had to gag.

"That would be a good idea," Emmett mused, looking particularly happy. "Do you want me to bring anything?"

I was glad Rose chose to whisper her suggestions in his ear in stead of saying them out load because I had a sneaking suspicion I would definitely have revisited my lunch if I had overheard what she was saying.

Emmett was so caught up staring at Rose he didn't even seem to hear the ringing of the phone on is desk.

"If the two of you are done with foreplay would someone please pick up the phone?" I growled, rolling my eyes at them.

"Bitch," Rose muttered under her breath as she leaned back on the sofa again.

"_Good morning Angels," _Carlisle's voice floated through the air.

"Good morning Carlisle!" we answered. The first time I had to do that I thought I would choke on my own spit. I was that close to breaking out in hysterical giggles.

I mean, three grown up women, trained in the art of combat, singing into a receiver.

What. The. Fuck?

After a few months it had started to get more familiar and the urge to snort slowly disappeared. For some kind of fucked up reason I even enjoyed our conversations with Carlisle now. There really must be something illegal in those vitamin pills Carlisle provided us with to have me acting like a fucking Brady.

"_So I hear that things at the club last night had a satisfactory outcome,"_ he paused after that and I knew what was coming, "_even though some rather high risks were taken." _

"I'm sorry Carlisle," I muttered. I didn't know why I was hanging my head in shame to a fucking speaker phone. "But I did get a member of The Pack to defect."

"_I am proud of you for managing to do what the police have failed to achieve for years,"_ he praised, _"though remember: your safety is always what matters most to this agency. We haven't lost an angel yet and I hope I never will." _

Alice glared at me while Carlisle spoke. Apparently she hadn't forgiven me for last night either.

"_The reason I called is that there are some new developments in the case," _Carlisle continued. _"Developments that may shine a new light on the matter entirely." _

"What is it Carlisle?" Rosalie asked, dropping the lock of hair she had been playing with.

"_Four vials containing samples with the highly contagious Spanish flu went missing from Forks General Hospital recently and according to my sources it is believed that Tyler Crowley was the last person who had access to the lab before they were stolen." _

"That sick son of a bitch," Rose growled.

"_You may want to wait before you pass judgment,_" Carlisle warned as a tape containing a hospital surveillance tape started playing on the big screen.

"Who is that?" Alice asked, pointing to a man walking behind the murdered man.

"You think we'd be here if he did?" Rose snorted.

"_We don't know who he is,"_ Carlisle spoke, disregarding Rose's snide remark. "_Enhanced footage of the tapes reveal the name tag on his scrubs to be belonging to a Kevin Volchok but there are no records confirming such a man exists."_

"So do we think this Volchok person - or whatever the hell is name is – is in league with The Pack?" I asked.

"_That seems unlikely,"_ Carlisle replied. _"The Pack never cooperates with anyone outside their own circle. However, this man may be able to shed some light on how Tyler Crowley passed his last hours on this earth and who the vials were meant for."_

"You don't think The Pack has them?" Emmett asked.

"No you dumb fuck," Rosalie growled. "The pack deal drugs. They won't just switch to terrorism."

Alice and I both snickered as we listened to the two of them bickering. Obviously being in love hadn't made Rose go all soft and gooey.

"_This case keeps getting more and more complicated," _Carlisle summarized, "_and I fear more dangerous too. For now we need to focus on two things.......First to help the police to put The Pack behind bards and learn what we can about the Crowley-case in the process. Second to find the mystery man in the hospital as soon as possible and prevent the vials from falling into the wrong hands." _

"Will do Carlisle," Alice said in an assuring voice.

Yeah, like it would be so fucking easy.

"_I have every faith in you my angels,"_ Carlisle laughed. "_But remember to keep safe." _

We went home to discuss tactics and get some much needed rest after we had wrapped up our conversation with Carlisle, though my rest was put short by a call from my dad.

"_How are you doing sweetheart?"_ Charlie's gruff voice asked. He sounds like he's had a rough couple of days.

"I'm fine dad," I sigh. "Are you? You don't sound so good."

"_It's nothing,"_ He chuckles. _"I just got back from chasing some lowlife Casino fraud through the dessert." _

"Right."

"_I'm starting to get a little too old for that kind of stuff,"_ he ads. "_It's a good thing the guy never got very far or I would have lost him." _

"So everything else is going okay?" I asked. I wanted my dad to be happy. He had gone through so much shit in his life that he didn't deserve.

"_I'm fine Bells,"_ he sighed._ "How many times do I have to repeat it before you get the message? Life on the road suits me. I love it. The only thing I worry about is my little girl being all alone in the city." _

"I'm fine dad," I laughed. If only he knew I could take a man out in under a minute using just two fingers. "Work's been really busy."

I had told my father I was working as a receptionist for some kind of law firm while taking classes at Forks Community College in the evening. That way I could prevent him from worrying about my future and explain why I was hardly even at home when he called.

Lying to my dad had felt unnatural and I hated having to do it but there was no way Charlie could ever find out about what I did..

"So what were you saying about chasing a guy through the desert?" I asked, quickly changing the subject.

"_Yeah,"_ Charlie sighed. _"We had a client who thought some guy was ripping off his casino but when we went after him he fled and we had to chase him halfway through the state of Nevada before we caught him."_I could almost hear him shrug though the phone as he explained himself though he hadn't been able to hide the excitement in his voice_. "He did earn us a nice little sum though." _

"That's great," I replied. "And how's things going aside from the job? Are you taking care of yourself?"

"_Always being the parent,"_ he chuckled, though I knew how much he liked me mothering over him. _"But just to set your mind at rest.....Sue's taking great care of me. Really, sometimes I feel like a Christmas goose with the way she's feeding me." _

"That's great dad!" I chuckled. I had a feeling Sue and my dad were more than just friends, though he never spoke to me about her other than the usual references to being clothed and fed properly. He was probably worried about how I was going to react to the news when he told me and he might have even felt a little guilty about falling in love again after loosing my mom.

"_Listen honey, I have to go,"_ he sighed. _"Bad guys to track down and all that." _

"Okay dad, take care of yourself and tell Sue I said hi,"

"_Will do pumpkin," _he grinned_. "Be safe." _

The moment he hung up that same bittersweet feeling that always came over me after our conversations reared its ugly head again.

I loved my dad and deep down inside I wanted nothing more than for him to be happy but I also wanted him to be here. He was all that I had in the way of family and history and I missed that. I really did.

However....I knew his new job made him more happy than his old one ever had and he had even seemed to have found love again, something I would never have thought possible. In a way his life was more exciting than mine was right now.

I also knew that if he would be here thing would get impossible. I could never keep working for Carlisle without my father finding out something about it, he was a cop after all. If he ever found out what I got up to nowadays he would either flip, have a heart attack or both and I didn't want to put him through that.

No, it was all for the better.

But still........

The bittersweet feeling had me thinking back about last night and the bittersweet feelings I felt thinking back on it.

Thinking back on him

Morgue guy.

Edward.

I wondered what he was thinking – if indeed he was thinking about me – and if he hated me. For some reason that last thought, the thought that he was somewhere out me thinking ill of me, hit me harder than it should.

He was nothing, just some guy at a club who had managed to catch my eye. Really, come to think of it I should probably hate him for distracting me from the case and almost making me spill every damn secret that I had.

I had a fucking job to do. I was a professional, not some teen aged girl fawning over the first hot decent guy that came along.

Then why the hell was I still thinking about him? Why was I not celebrating my triumph?

I had almost singlehandedly brought down The Pack, one of the most notorious crime organizations in this fucking town. I had done what no fucking police agent or detective had been able to do.

I should be fucking ecstatic! Or drunk. Or both.

Instead I was wallowing in my room, trying to block out the strange noises coming from the room next door.

I had just convinced myself that it was just Rose watching some kind of loud show on the tv in her room when a 'Fuck Rose' shattered all my hopes of not revisiting my dinner somehow.

Apparently Emmett arrived horny and willing and his job of protecting the angels in their time of peril seemed to be restricted to Rosalie's bedroom.

When the noises started to get louder and louder I banged my first on the wall, hoping they would get the message but somehow it only spurred them on.

I tried everything I could to drown out the noise, even cranking the volume on my stereo up to 'are you nuts' levels but for some strange reason nothing could drown out the sound of my best friend and my boss going at it like fucking rabbits next door.

In the end I settled for sleep, the headphones of my I-pod blocking out most of the sounds from next door as I tried to get some rest. I sure needed it after all that happened during last few days.

I don't know if it was the fuckathon going on next door or the thoughts that had been running through my head before I fell asleep but the moment I fell asleep – a miracle on it's own considering the noise level - he was there in my dreams and I knew the moment it started that is was going to be one of_ those_ dreams.

_We were back at the club, though this time it was empty and dark. The only light that illuminated the vast space around us were the fluorescent blue and purple lights that lines the balcony, bar and dj-booth._

_He was standing in the middle of the dance floor, holding out his hand for me._

"_Trust me," he spoke, his voice deep and husky._

"_You will leave me, they all do." _

"_I am not like them," he stated, palming my cheek in his hand. "Trust me." _

_I didn't even have to think about it. The words came fast, almost unwittingly. "I trust you." _

"_Dance with me." _

_The music that started was slower than the one we had danced to before, more sensual. He spun me around before his hands rested on my lower back, puling my body flush against his. _

"_Do you feel it too/' he asked, as he ran his hands over the exposed skin of my arms._

"_I do," I answered, looking into his eyes. I could hardly make out their expression in the darkness but I thought I saw the same feeling reflected in them that were currently pulsing through my body with an almost dazzling intensity. "What do you think it means/' _

_He brought my hand to his lips, kissing it, just like he had done before. "Destiny," he muttered, using my hand to pull me towards a stack of pillows that was neatly arranged in a corner of the dance floor. "This was meant to be." _

"_I trust you," I said, as my trembling hands began to unbutton his shirt._

_When we moved together, unhindered by clothes or any other boundaries between us I knew what he meant by destiny bringing us together. This wasn't just some random fuck, destined to satiate your lust for a little while, this was something else, something that was almost spiritual. This was what it was meant to be._

_Our slick bodies miving against each other, inside one another, bringing the other to new and previously unknown heights. We both screamed out the other's name as we followed each other over the edge, the electricity that flowed so freely before igniting into sparks of blinding light in front of my eyes._

_I kissed his shoulder, panting for breath as I came down from my high but when I turned to look at him I screamed in terror__ because the face I saw didn't belong to the man I had just given my everything to._

_It belonged to Jacob Black._

"_I'll never let you go again," he stated, but his voice didn't convey the softness and love I had heard in Edwards voice. Jacob sounded like a man talking about his possession._

"_Let me go," I screamed. "It's not you who I want!" _

"_You gave yourself to me willingly," he growled, pushing in to me as I fought him with everything I had. "Now that I have you you're mine until I say otherwise." _

"_NO!" I yelled. I had to keep fighting him or I would loose myself and everything I had loved in this life forever. _

"Bella wake up!" I could feel a stinging sensation in my cheek as I awoke.

I was covered in sweat and panting for air as I noticed Alice, Rosalie and Emmett standing around me, all sporting worried looks.

"I'm fine," I panted.

"Who the fuck are you trying to fool?" Rose growled. "You were screaming so loud even we were able to hear you and just look at you!" She looked at me with a disgusted glare. "All covered in sweat and with hair standing out in all directions."

"It was just a bad dream," I snarled, pulling my sheets up in an attempt to cover the evidence of my nightmare.

"Yeah, sure," Rose snorted. "And I'm mother freakin' Theresa!"

"Well you do seem to be all about giving these days," I growled, looking at Emmett who wasn't able to really hide his shit eating grin, even though the rest of his face looked concerned.

"I think it's time for breakfast," Alice intervened before looking sternly at me. "And you're making it."

"Sure Ally," I said, rolling my eyes at her. It was not like any of the other girls could cook anyway. Well, at least not something a human being could actually eat.

Cooking breakfast seemed to ease my nerves and give me a new perspective. Sure, the dream had been scary – though parts of it had been rather nice – but it could all be explained logically once you took a step backwards and thought about it.

The bit about Edward was clearly fueled by the noises coming from Rose's room and the fact that I had been thinking about him shortly before going to sleep. The bit about Jacob must have something to do with my nerves about the impending meeting and my excitement about bringing down The Pack.

There really was nothing to worry about, it was all just down to my weird freaky brain mixing all of that shit together in some kind of fucked up soap opera.

"Are you really sure you feel up to this?" Alice asked as she handed me my bag. I hadn't told her too much about my dream. She would only read far too much into it if she knew and then I would never hear the end of it.

"The next person who's going to ask me if I feel okay id going to loose an appendage," I spat back. I was sick of people asking me how I felt. It made me feel weak and dependent and I had been weak and depended far to much in the last few years.

"A simple yes would have sufficed," Alice chastised. "No need to bite my head off just because I care about you."

"I'm fine mommy," I sang, kissing her on the cheek before grabbing my keys and walking out the room. Rose and Emmett were nowhere to be seen and after last night I knew better than to go looking for them.

I arrived at the diner about an hour before the meeting would take place. Angela had called me yesterday afternoon to go over the plans for today and we had agreed to meet in advance to get me hooked up to a microphone and go over the questions they wanted answers to once again.

Those cops really must think I was stupid or something. I mean, it's not like their questioning were difficult or anything. They just wanted to know what The Pack had been up to all those years and how they did it.

Angela showed up with a sourly looking detective trailing behind her only moments after I had taken a seat.

"First we get the fucking Feds pissing all over our terrain and now we hand our cases over to private cowboys. Why don't we just get rid of the detective squad all together?" she growled.

Either the woman woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning or she just had a thing against me. Considering she probably knew who I was I opted for the last reason.

"Don't mind Kate," Angela grinned, as she fastened their outdated looking microphone in an inconspicuous place. "She's just angry about having to put up with two Federal agents who took over the Crowley case from her. One of them thinks he can woo her."

I flashed the female detective a sympathetic look. I hated when guys thought they could put the moves on you just because you were single and working together.

"Oh, don't feel sorry for her!" Angela continued, laughing as Kate scowled. "She stunned the poor guy in front of the whole detective squad when he had the nerve to grab her ass."

"Nice one!" I complimented Kate.

"Thanks!" She chuckled. "I wouldn't be so bad if he wasn't actually kind of a good looking guy. It's a shame he's such a dick or I probably would have gone out with him. I mean....yesterday I was showing him around a crime scene and he was acting all nice and gentlemanly and I almost started to kind of like him when it turned out he was just trying out a different way of getting into my pants!"

"Is he going to be here?" Angela asked.

"Dear lord I hope not," Kate growled. "If I have to spend an hour in a fucking radio van with the guy someone is going to get hurt and it won't be me."

A voice over the radio alerted us to the fact that it was almost noon and Jacob would be walking into the diner any minute now. Angela wished me luck while Kate reminded me to stick to the questions they had provided me with and 'not attempt to grow a brain' before they left for their van, seconds before Jacob walked in.

"I've come up with one more demand," he grinned as he took his seat across from me again.

"And that is?" I asked, playing with my menu. I tried to act self confident and callous even though my nerves were throbbing in my throat. I didn't have any authority to make deals or even discuss them so I hoped he wouldn't be asking too much.

"I want a date with you, pretty lady," he chuckled.

"What?"

"A date," he repeated. "You know......two people, nice clothes, food and stuff."

"You want a date with me?" I repeated incredulously.

"Yep," he nodded. "Or I'm not saying anything."

I quickly pondered my options. I could walk away and have this deal blow up on all of us or I could take it and sit out one evening with a known criminal, not something I hadn't done before.

I knew that my sense of duty to Carlisle told me to just suck it up and take the offer. Being an angels sometimes meant pushing aside any personal feelings or principles to get the job done. I knew Carlisle himself didn't encourage us to do so - in fact he had always encouraged us to follow our conscience – but sometimes conscience and values simply stood in the way of our ultimate goal, solving crime.

I knew however, that the doubts I felt about Jacobs proposition weren't merely professional. Most of them were caused by personal issues that were raging around in my head, all of them centered around a mysterious man with strange bronze colored hair and the greenest eyes I had ever seen.

Would it be so hard to go on a date with Jacob Black regardless of those feelings?

Yes it would, part of me said.

I remembered last night's dream and the feelings both Jacob and Edward had evoked. I knew it was just a date. Just dinner and maybe a movie. I could do that. It was easy enough.

Then why was my whole body screaming at me to refuse the offer?

Another part of me reasoned that this reformed criminal sitting in front of me was perhaps the best thing I could find out there. Jacob Black wasn't unfortunate looking – as I had seen before – and in spite of his criminal ways – which he was ready to say goodbye to – he struck me as a likable enough person to go out on a date with.

"Okay," I said reluctantly. Would Jacob ever realize the pain his question had caused me?

"Good," he said. "I'll pick you up on Friday night at eight. Wear something sexy."

"Fine," I sighed, unable to even feign enthusiasm.

"I've written some shit down," he said, pushing a file in my direction. "You can give that to your friend."

"What's in it?" I asked, opening the folder to reveal a couple of sheets, filled with almost unintelligible scribblings.

"Names, dates, everything needed to give the whole Forks detective squad a shared orgasm."

I scanned the paper for things that I could place. Once you got the hang of Jacobs handwriting it wasn't so hard to make out. It was a written account of deals The Pack had made with their drug suppliers, weapons they had purchased and what appeared to be a full written account of all the murders that had taken place over the years.

One name, however, was strangely absent from the list.

"What about Tyler Crowley?" I asked, trailing my hand over the names.

"Tyler who?"

"The guy you lot had killed a couple of days ago."

"I don't know what you're talking about sweetheart," Jacob said confused. "We don't know a Tyler Crowley."

"But they found him in the woods with a slashed throat," I sighed frustrated.

"Then someone is copying our MO," Jacob growled. "We didn't have anything to do with him."

"Then who did it?"

"How the fuck am I supposed to know?" Jacob yelled. "I'm a snitch, not a fucking clairvoyant!"

"Sorry," I muttered. What the hell did you say to a defecting gang member after you falsely accused him of killing someone?

"Yeah, well. You couldn't have known," he sighed, waving the whole matter away. "Any other questions?"

I methodically rattled off all the questions Kate and Angela had told me to ask while carefully making sure the microphone was pointing straight at Jacob.

"Meet me in front of DiNozo's on Saturday at eight. Wear some hot black little number and we can consider this deal iron clad," he said as we were wrapping up our meeting.

"Sure," I shrugged, still unable to get all enthusiastic about it.

After he had marched out of the diner I met with Kate and Angela again to go over some things and get debugged before I headed back to the apartment. I was glad no calls from Carlisle had come through in the meantime. I really needed some time to think things over and I preferred to do that alone and without hearing how Rose's sex life had improved drastically over the last couple of days.

Driving back to the apartment I tried to get a grip on my feelings.

It was strange. This wasn't the first time I had used my body or my company as a means of getting what I wanted but somehow since the last couple of days it made me feel so.....dirty. It was almost like I was selling my body like a common whore.

I tried to shake those feelings from my mind. It just came with the job. Every occupation had its downsides and this was one of the uglier sides of my profession.

It wasn't like I didn't know what caused all these feelings.

It had something to do with the fact that I was falling – and falling hard, if I was really being honest – for a guy I didn't even know that well. For all I knew he may even be the sick psycho we're trying to catch!

When I got home there was a Manila envelope waiting for me on the hall table. Rose or Alice must have picked up the mail and left it there for me. It had my name written on it in an elegant, almost calligraphic, script.

Curious to what it was I ripped open the paper and tore out to sheets of paper. One – the one on top – had more of the strange, old fashioned handwriting on it.

_You might find this interesting._

I tossed the sheet of paper on the ground. Curious to see what was underneath it.

It was a photograph.

A photograph of Alistair Trevelyan, the current chief of police, shaking hands with Aro Volturi.

A photograph which, according to the date on the back, was taken about fourteen months ago. A week before the failed warehouse raid.

This could mean only one thing.

Alistair Trevelyan was the son of a bitch who destroyed my dad's career.

Alistair Trevelyan was a dead man.

* * *

_**Bella finally found out who framed her dad. What do you think she's going to do with that piece of information? Who send her the envelope? Why did they do it?**_

_**This chapter may have answered a few of the questions concerning Jacob. Later on, in the chapter with their date in it, we'll find out why he is willing to defect. I had originally put that bit of information in this chapter but, reading it all back, it just didn't feel right so you have to be patient a little while longer.**_

_**I really hope to be able to get back to posting twice a week this week. It's the last of the really crazy weeks for me but since I got a bit more writing done than I anticipated last week (I would have done even more if I hadn't been so completely wrapped up in reading The Red Line by WinndSinger. Go read it of you haven't already. It's amazing) so I should be fine. It all depends on if I can get the next chapter edited before Friday.**_

_**By the way........the next chapter is going to be in a new POV. You'll never guess who (clue: it's not a POV that you see all that much)**_

_**Please let me know what you thought of this one.**_


	10. Cocaine Blues

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

* * *

**WARNING: our dear Mike has kind of a foul mouth. **

* * *

**Cocaine Blues.**

_**(Mike Newton)**_

I wondered how long it would take me to start counting the cracks in the fucking ceiling. So far I had been able to hold myself back but it was only by reminding myself that you'd have to be fucking stupid to do so.

I was this close.

I guess I should find a hobby or something, now that I was in here, but frankly there wasn't much that could be done in this little fucking closet of a cell I shared with two other losers.

I mean, I could make use of the fact that I was in here alone for now and jack off – again- but my wrist was starting to get a little sore. I sure hoped you couldn't get repetitive strain injury from masturbating.

Reading a book would have been an option if books didn't scare me half to death. I mean....come on! Half of the shit they had down here in the jail library was about pets or farmyard animals doing something heroic, teenage pregnancies or fucked up débutantes getting stood up by their dates.

They didn't even have one fucking crime novel! Not even the Da Vinci Code. I mean....what were the odds of one of the losers that were in here breaking out, hopping on a jet to France and steal the fucking Mona Lisa?

I didn't expect them to carry a book on how to improve your skills as a burglar or ax murder or something but come on. Chick Lit? In a men's prison? What – apart from it being good jack off material – was the use of reading a book about some skinny bitch being tortured by her boss while trying to starve herself into some fucking ugly dress that cost way too much?

I tensed as I heard a pair of heavy footsteps resound through the corridor, stopping right outside my cell.

So much for solitary confinement. I should have gotten at least one more wank in while I had the chance.

"You've got yourself some new roomies Newton," the warden chuckled as he opened the door to my cell. "Play nice!"

"Sick son of a bitch," I grumbled. Over the last couple of days I had found out there were two types of jackasses working in this place. The first type being the sadistic sons of bitches who got off on making you feel as miserable as you could possibly be and the creepy sons of bitches who tried to cure you of your wicked ways.

I hadn't made up my mind yet which kind I hated most.

Two guys walked in as the door swung open. One of them was huge, as in bodybuilder shaped while the other one had a skinnier frame. Both of them scowled at the warden as he closed the door behind them before looking around the room.

I sure as hell hope they weren't as fucked up as the huge homie they had thrown in here yesterday. I don't think I'd ever come so close to dying in my entire life. I mean, how the fuck was I supposed to know you weren't actually allowed to speak ghetto if you didn't grew up in da hood? One 'fo shizzle ma nizzle' and I had had my head rammed into the toilet bowl, nearly drowning in leftover piss.

The worst thing about it was that my screaming for someone to come fucking rescue me had turned me into the bitch of cell block E so now I couldn't even fucking shower anymore without having to watch out for some huge son of a bitch wanting to fuck me in the ass.

Jail sucks.

Big time.

I had never thought I would end up here. I mean, sure, I dabbled in cocaine and shit but I always figured that if I got caught my mom would be there to bail me out and get me a good attorney. Even it it would just be out of guilt for leaving me at home to talk to strangers and play with matches while she was off working at the fucking store all day when I was young.

I couldn't have been more wrong.

So far the only thing I had heard of my parents was my dad yelling at me through the phone that I was a waste of space.

Fucking waste of a phone cal that was.

He had told me in no uncertain terms that I would do good not to expect any help from them in this mess I had landed myself in. I had to sort all of this out on my own. He even went as far as to say some jail time might be character building. How fucked up is that?

Stupid jackass.

I mean, what was this world coming to if parents couldn't even be bothered to bail their only kid out?

The skinny dude was quick to shuffle further into the room and claim the bottom bunk on the opposite wall, grinning like a fucking idiot for outsmarting big guy who just rolled his eyes at the skinny guy and marched over to my bunk.

"Out," he ordered, pointing at me.

What did he think I was? A dog or something. And what the hell happened to common fucking courtesy? Wasn't he supposed ot at least introduce himself before he started ordering me about?

"There's a free bunk at the top," I said, pointing to the mattress above my head.

"I don't do stairs," he barked. "Out."

"Well dickwad, I don't do stairs either!" I yelled back. Seriously. What was this guys problem?

"You've got to be fucking kidding me," he chuckled. "Did you hear that poor loser Demetri? I don't think he knows who he's fucking talking to."

"Why don't you educate him?" the lanky one grinned, looking like some kind of deranged psycho.

"I don't know," the big guy pondered. "He seems like a particularly stupid son of a bitch. Wouldn't it be a total waste of my time? I may as well rip his throat out right now."

"Waste of time?" the other one chuckled. "How long do you think it would take Aro to get Heidi to bail us out of here? I think at least a few more hours." He rolled his eyes in disdain. "Try educating him first, you can always rip his guts out later."

"Good plan," the big guy boomed, yanking me out of my bunk by my feet before throwing me on the floor.

He rolled the sleeves of his shirt up to reveal a medieval styled V inked into the inside of his wrist and almost shoved it into my face.

I shuddered inwardly as I spotted the mark. Though I had never encountered one of them yet I knew what it meant.

Trouble.

Big fucking trouble.

"Do you see this?" he said, pointing at the mark as I scrambled to my feet again.

I nodded.

"Do you know what it means?" he barked.

I nodded again.

"Say it," he ordered.

"You're a member of the Volturi?" I said, a little taken aback by the sign on his skin. Those guys weren't to be fucked with. At least not if you didn't have a death wish.

"That's right jackass," he spat. "And why is it that the Volturi always get what they want bitch?"

"Because they kill whatever is in their way?"

"I have to hand it to you," he grinned, patting me on the head. "You're quick to learn."

"My momma would be proud to hear that," I smirked back, trying to save what was left of my street credibility as I climbed up to the top bunk. At least it was better than sleeping with the fishes.

"Oh and just so you know: fart and it will be the last thing you do."

"Yes sir," I said, scooting as far towards the wall as I could without falling into the gap between the wall and my bed.

"I don't think he'll be troubling us again any time soon," the scary lank guy – Demetri? - chuckled.

"Not if he knows what's good for him," the big guy boomed back, sending me flying into the air as he punched his fist against the bottom of my bunk.

Stupid bastards.

"God, I hope Heidi gets here soon," the guy named Demetri whined, picking the sad excuse for a pillow up with a disgusted look on his face. "What do you think the chances are of getting some kind of luxury cell?"

"You can, you know, fuggettaboutit," I chuckled. "It ain't gonna happen, at least not unless your last name is Hilton."

"Did I ask you something?" he snarled and before I knew it his skinny pale white arm had grabbed me by the throat and yanked me down from my bunk. "And just so you know.......watching the Godfather trilogy doesn't give you the right to mingle into things you know nothing about. Show some respect asshole!"

What was it with these guys throwing a complete bitchfest when I was just trying to be a cool guy and say something nice?

Somehow the skinny dude creeped me out more than his big friend did. There was something about him, something that held the promise of pain – lots of it – if you didn't bow down to his greatness the moment he wanted you to. That shit was scarier than the pecs on the big guy.

"Hey," I yelled, trying to pry his hands away from my windpipe. "I'm just trying to be nice. No need to bite my head off!'

"Nice?" he snarled, specs of spit flying into my face. "You're trying to be nice while insulting my family and heritage?"

"It was just a joke man!" I squeaked, trying to suck in enough breath to keep myself from dying. "How the fuck was I supposed to know you were going to freak out about it?"

"If you had any brains in that ugly mug of yours you might have guessed!" he yelled, smashing my head against the floor.

This stuff was really starting to freak the fuck out of me. I mean, how hard was it to find a decent roomie in prison? Why did I have to end up with the fucking psycho's who wanted to kill me?

At least it would only be a couple of hours before they'd let us out of here. Perhaps I could pump some weights to build up a little bit of muscle in the recreational area. God knows I'd be needing it if I was ever going to make it out of here in one piece and with my sphincter intact.

"Sorry man," I said, trying to hide my annoyance. "I didn't know you'd take it this badly."

"Do it again and you'll find out the hard way not to fuck with a member of the Volturi guard," he hissed as he released me. "Now be a good boy and go ponder every possible meaning of the words 'silent as the grave'."

For the second time that day I hurried up the steps to my new bunk, wanting to get the fuck away from Scarface and Don Vito.

I spend some time being as quiet and inconspicuous as I could while praying for some miracle to happen to get me out of here.

I wasn't cut out for this kind of shit.

The return of the heavy footsteps resounding through the corridor made me hope that something – anything – had happened to make my dream come true or at least deliver me from the scary bunk stealing Italians.

"Get yer lazy ass of out of bed Newton," the warden hollered as he opened the door to our cell. "You've got a visitor."

"Finally," I muttered to myself, carefully avoiding still glowering at me from their bunks.

"You look like a scared little girl Newton," the sadistic son of a bitch chuckled as I fled into the corridor. "What is it? Not liking your new roommates?"

"I'm fine," I huffed, holding my hands out in front of me as I walked the corridor to the iron gate separating my cell block from the central part of the prison.

As I walked down to the corridors amidst the now familiar calls of 'man walking' I wondered who my visitor could be. I mean, apart from the guys in The Pack that supplied me with my stuff I didn't know that many people and I knew damn well Jake would never come near a prison unless he could see some kind of gain to be gotten from it.

It would have to be Bella. I had given up hope of my mom coming to visit me after the phone call. There was no way my dad would allow her to come near me and unfortunately the motherfucker always got his way.

No, Bella was a safe guess to go with.

I knew she couldn't resist me for long. I mean, once the girls had a taste of the real Slim Shady they'd always keep coming back for more.

I could just imagine her sitting there at one of those tables, her plump pink lips parted and her legs a little apart so that you could see all the way to China of you made a little effort.

Damn. I knew I should have gotten more out of my alone time. I wondered if they'd let us use the little room they used for connubial visits because the thought of Bella had made me horny as fuck.

Then again, it was nowhere near visiting hours. If it was Bella then how the fuck did she get in? Did she blow the governor or something?

Much to my shock the person sitting at a table in the Visiting Room wasn't Bella. Hell, it wasn't even someone I knew.

Not that I cared. I mean, the girl sitting in the middle of the room was hot and it wasn't just because I hadn't seen another woman all week.

She was genuinely gorgeous.

"Enjoy your visitor Newton," The son of a bitch warden said. "I know I will."

For once I couldn't find fault in what the guy said. I mean, what's not to enjoy about this girl? She looked almost like a porcelain doll with her pale white skin and red curtly hair but at the same time she had an almost feline fierceness that promised many good things.

"Are you Mike Newton?" she asked me in a melodic husky voice, keeping the volume low enough so as not to be heard by the warden.

I nodded, taking a seat next to her, trying to keep myself from drooling.

"Then I have a proposition for you," she purred, leaning forward slightly in a way that had us close enough to discuss something in private but not close enough to make the warden intervene.

"A proposition?" I asked.

"A proposition," she repeated, waiting for my mind to catch up before she continued. "I can get you out of here if you'll help me with something."

"You want my help?" I knew I wasn't exactly made of rocket scientist material but I wasn't stupid either and this proposition or whatever the fuck she was calling it didn't make any sense. I didn't even know the girl. How on earth was I supposed to help her. "What the fuck do you want my help for?"

"What do you know about Bella Swan?" every man's fantasy asked.

"Huh?" This wasn't the questions I had been expecting.

"Listen you little dweep," she sighed, tapping her fingernails on the Formica table. "I'll have you out here in less time than a good wank takes but it's going to cost you."

"Wait! Back the truck up there sweetheart!" I hissed, seeing her face scrunch up in disapproval again. "You want me to dish out the dirt on my girl? I don't even know your fucking name!"

"Your girl?" she chuckled. "Are you fucking serious?"

"Yeah," I growled. The girl may have been pretty but her personality sure as hell wasn't. "What about it?"

"I personally don't believe Bella Swan saw a clueless little twerp like you as anything else but a meal ticket," miss congeniality explained. "But she may have told you some interesting shit."

"Like I'm going to tell you," I spat.

"Then enjoy the rest of your time in here," she shrugged, preparing to leave. "What's the standard sentence for possession and trading of a class A substance again?"

"Wait," I yelled after her.

"What," she said, looking a little too smug for my liking.

"I'll help you out but not before you get me the fuck out of this hellhole."

"You're telling me all I need to know before I bail you out," she stated.

"Yeah, right! So you can just send me back to Skinny Pete and Tony Soprano? I don't think so sweetheart!"

"Believe me," she said, leaning closer to me. "I have other uses for you apart from what you can tell me about the Swan girl. Leaving you here at the mercy of your fellow inmates would be very silly."

Looking at what I saw right now in front of me made it very difficult to drive a hard bargain. Apart from my dick screaming at me to just make a deal with the pretty lady, the thought of going back to the scary Italians freaked the crap out of me. I had no doubt in my mind that if I stayed there I was going to end up being their bitch one way or another, no lack of bathing would prevent that. And to be honest, I wasn't exactly thrilled at the prospects of saying hello to their little friends.

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" I growled, opting for the safe attitude: distrust.

"I have something for you I'd like you to try," she half whispered, winking at the warden who was still standing in the corner. "Something that could make us very rich in just the blink of an eye."

"Right, and you're sharing it with me just because you like the sound of my name?" I snorted. "What kind of fool do you take me for?"

"We need someone like you on our team," she chuckled.

Ah! Now she was making sense. I knew that because of my kind of innocent, boyish looks no one suspected me to be on the wrong side of the law. I mean, grannies basically gave me money to go shopping for them. The cops wouldn't even suspect me of dealing if I sold my shit out of the back of my Hummer right in front of their eyes.

Or so I thought before I got arrested.

Perhaps they needed someone who would remain under the radar or they were just after my connections with The Pack. Though I wasn't sure if those fucked up Indians would have anything to do with me now that I had been inside.

"Okay," I said, still not sure if this was such a good decision after all. "So what is it you want to know?"

"Anything you've got on Bella Swan," she replied, almost without thinking.

"I don't know that much about her," I replied. "We only went out for a couple of dates."

"What did she tell you about her family?"

"Only that her dad got kicked out of the police force after some fake photograph showed up of her dad talking to that guy from the Volturi. You know....that creepy guy with the blue eyes?"

"Aro?"

"Yeah, that's him!" I said, jumping up a little. "The Godfather himself."

"For God's sake keep it down a notch," she hissed, her eyes shooting from the warden to me. "We don't want anyone listening in on us do we?"

"So, anyway......that picture cause a huge clusterfuck over at the police station because a bunch of cops had just met with the wrong end of a gun and died when they raided one of the Volturi warehouses."

"How did Bella feel about that?"

"Pissed off of course!" I laughed. "She knew the picture was fake the moment she saw it. She's been trying to find the son of a bitch who framed her dad ever since!"

"Hmm," she mused, leaning her head on her hand. "That might actually have earned you a ticket out of here!"

"It better have!" I growled, crossing my arms over my chest.

"Give me a moment or so to get everything sorted out and meet me in front of the building once you're done," she stated, rising from her seat.

"I want to know your name first," I said. "Just in case you're trying to screw me over."

"And you think I'd give you my real name if that as indeed my plan?" she laughed. "You can call me Madison Lee." She handed me her card, stating her name as Madison Lee, attorney at law.

I bet it was as fake as my moms platinum blond hair.

Much to my relieve the warden didn't bring me back to my room after my meeting with the girl, Madison Lee, was finished but escorted me right down to the recreational facilities where I played a couple of poker games with my buddie Chad and the random losers he shared his cell with.

Chad and I had a lot of things in common. Bella being one of them.

It turned out Madison Lee was true to her word because before we had to go back to our cells someone came to get me and help me fill in the paperwork to get me the hell out of there.

"Good luck buddie!" Chad yelled after me. "Don't let them catch you again!"

"I wont!" I yelled back, shooting a smug grin at Skinny Pete and Tony Soprano. It seemed my connections were better than theirs after all.

"And say hi to Bella from me if you ever see her again!" I head Chad yell when I was almost out of earshot.

After I was done filling in a gazillion forms and had retrieved my own clothes – hallelujah for no more of those potato sacks that made up the standard outfit for the inmates – and the rest of my possessions I sprinted the hell out the the door and started looking for the redhead.

I found her leaning against a car – my car – in the almost empty prison parking lot.

What the fuck?

"I borrowed your ride," she stated nonchalantly, as if she'd just bummed a smoke off me.

"What?" I yelled. "You stole my car?"

"It's not as if you were using it," she replied, rolling my eyes at me. "Now, are you coming with me or not?"

"You psycho bitch!" I yelled. "You stole my fucking car!" My Hummer was my pride and joy and I never let anyone but me touch it, let alone hold the gear shift. If that whore ruined it she would be sorry.

I ran over to my baby, inspecting the paint and exterior for signs of abuse. She seemed fine. Not even a speck of dust on it. At least the bitch knew how to treat a work of art as it should be treated.

Wait a minute?

If she stole the Pussywagon then why were there no signs of it?

"Looking for this brainiac?" she snorted, dangling my keys in front of my face.

"How the fuck did you get those?" I tried to remember where I could have lost them but as far as I knew they were still sitting on the counter at my place.

"YOU BROKE IN TO MY HOUSE?" This was getting stranger by the second. I swear, the bitch owed me a damn good explanation. That or she could find some other poor schmuck to service her.

"Again....it's not like you were using it," she chuckled, opening the door to MY car. "Would you have preferred me to break one of the windows anyway?"

"Of course not!"

"I figured as much," she grinned. "Now get in the damn car."

"It's my fucking car bitch!" I yelled. "Get out of the driver's seat."

She muttered something under her breath that sounded awfully like 'dumb son of a bitch' before opening the passenger door and patting the seat. "Get in or stay here."

What? Was she really thinking I would wait here in a deserted prison parking lot for the loser bus to take me in to the city while she drove off in the Pussywagon?

Don't think so!

"I thought as much," she grinned smugly as I climbed into the passenger seat. "What were you going to do anyway? Call the cops on me?"

"Bitch."

"Was that supposed to wound me?" she chuckled as she tore out of the parking lot. "I've been called much worse, you know."

"You're going the wrong way," I said as she turned in the direction opposite from the city.

"Depends on where you think we're going."

"Forks is that way," I said, pointing in the right direction. Why was it so hard for a pair of tits to navigate smoothly from one point to another? It was like someone screwed around with the female brain making it impossible for them to find their way around the globe, not even if they had a map sitting right in front of them.

That must be why they were always late for dates and stuff. Screw having to put on makeup as other crap, they just got lost finding their way.

"Then it's a good thing we're not going to Forks, right?" she huffed, rolling her eyes at me.

"Right," I sighed. "Then where are we going?"

"My place," she grinned.

Hell yes!

This had to mean she was interested in other things than just using my innocent face as a front to sell more stuff.

Not that I could blame her of course.

I mean, if she only knew what the Mikenator was capable off she would have been spread out on the hood of the car, whinnying like a broodmare right now.

We drove through the woods surrounding Forks before turning into a small private road leading up to a modern structure standing in a clearing in the woods. It was one of those houses that was all glass and wood and modern appliances.

I was a little surprised when she drove right past the house and pulled up behind it in front of some kind of huge shed or storage building that looked equally modern and high tech but without all the glass and wood of the house.

"Follow me," she said, smiling sweetly at me as she exited my car.

I snorted. It was amazing how the meanest bitch on the planet turned all soft and nice at the prospect of having my dick rammed into her.

"Sure sweetheart," I chuckled, following her into the building. She must be one who likes it rough if she preferred a barn to a bed.

Whatever the girl wants......

"So how do you want to do this?" I asked as I followed her through a dark corridor.

"Do what?" she asked, turning around to face me.

"Fuck?"

"What?"

"There's no need to look all disgusted, sweetheart," I growled, a little hurt by the look on the girls face. "I thought that was what you wanted."

"There's no way in hell I'm letting you near me," she spat, opening a door at the end of the corridor.

"Then what did you bring me all the way out here for?" I asked as we stepped into some elaborate looking kind of lab. This must be where they cooked whatever drugs it was that they were selling.

"Owch!" I yelled, as I felt something stab into my side. "What the hell?"

I grabbed my side and turned around to see some scary looking dude in a lab coat standing behind me holding an empty syringe.

"We brought you here to test our product silly," Madison, or whatever the fuck her real name was, giggled.

"Do you think I'm, some kind of lab rat or something?" I brushed my hand over the part where Doctor Doom had stuck the needle through my clothes.

"Close enough," she said, keeping up her annoying cackle.

"What did you inject me with anyway?" I growled. I hoped it wasn't some kind of crap that made you hallucinate or something. I had seen enough purple leprechauns leapfrogging over one another in my life to know that wasn't my thing.

"Something that's going to change your fucking life," the doctor stated, pushing me in the direction of some kind of room leading off from the laboratory.

I realized to late that it wasn't a room exactly, more like some kind of fusion between a cell and an aquarium. It had glass walls on the part of it that was connected to the lab and the bright lights made it feel like I was on display.

Shit.

I had definitely turned into some kind of lab rat.

This was definitely the last time I let my dick decide what I was going to do.

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_**I hope this turned out all right. Having to channel Mike Newton for the better part of a week has been rather disturbing. I'm glad that for the next chapter we're back to darling Edward. I'll let Victoria have her say about all of this in a few chapters but right now it's time to find out if it was indeed Edward following Bella.**_

_**Please let me know what you thought of this one. **_


	11. When you're talking in your sleep

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

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**Are you ready for another fix of Stalkward?**

* * *

**When you're talking in your sleep.**

_**(Edward Masen)**_

"Hey man!" Garrett boomed as soon as I entered the broom closet that had been turned into our office. "Did you find out anything useful at the hospital?"

"Plenty," I sighed, still trying to process all of the information the old fossil in charge of the Infectious Diseases lab had fired at me. "Basically what the head of the Infectious Diseases lab said was that most of the people around today are immune to the original virus. If it is going to be used as a biological weapon someone would have to merge it with an existing flu virus and thus create a now version of it. So if you wanted to tweak the virus into something dangerous you'd need a pretty high tech lab and someone who knows what they are doing."

"So they don't think it's a serious threat?"

"They don't think many terrorists will go through the hassle of building a complete lab and creating some elaborate virus just to infect the good people of Forks."

"Many?"

"Yep," I growled. "That's what I said."

"So?"

"So I think they just want to cover their asses!" I replied. It was the predominant message the hospital seemed to want to get across today. The whole thing was no problem and would certainly not cause any embarrassment. No need to alert the media and the general public because someone they employed messed up. "And since our guy already went through the trouble of copying someone else's MO I think it's pretty safe to say he'll be willing to go through a lot of trouble to get what he wants."

"Who wants to go steal a virus without having a good use for it anyway?" Garrett snorted.

"Indeed," I nodded. "So I made a few calls to some of the larger manufacturers of medical equipment and found out that lots of stuff has been delivered to this area lately, though not to one and the same person."

"Hmm," Garrett mused. "Gibbs isn't going to like that."

"Nope," I sighed. "But I got them to send me their shipping lists anyway. Perhaps we can make out some sort of pattern."

"Would you mind going through them alone?" Garrett asked, looking at something on his phone. "Kate...well....uhm....detective Mulder....is going to take me to the meadow to show me around the crime scene."

Is that what they called it nowadays?

"You are aware of the fact that half of Forks has visited that place since then?" I smirked. "You'll find nothing there."

"Yeah well, I know," he shrugged, finding something very interesting about the linoleum floor all of a sudden. "I just figured we'd check it out. You know? Just to be on the safe side."

"So you're taking detective Mulder out of a date to a murder scene? How romantic!"

"It's not a date Masen!" Garrett snarled. "It's research."

"And what are you going to research? The size of her breasts?" That stuff might have worked on the fair detective but I knew him longer than today. Garrett was no idiot. He knew that the only thing he'd find in that meadow was a bunch of trampled daisies and perhaps a few specks of dried up blood if he was lucky and the rain hadn't washed it all away.

"I'm going," he mumbled before flashing an evil smirk at me. "Have fun with your shipping forms."

He waltzed out of the office after that, narrowly escaping the stapler I threw at his head before I buried myself in the stack of paperwork in front of me. Doing research behind a desk was one of the more boring aspects of my job but – alas – something that needed to be done.

I looked over the endless list of names, dates, places and supplied goods, highlighting the equipment send out to places on the Pacific Peninsula. There seemed to have been plenty stuff send out here, mostly to hospitals but also to private parties. Sadly no person seemed to have ordered enough equipment to warrant any extra attention.

After I had worked my way through a couple of lists however, a name on one of them caught my attention.

R.P. McMurphy.

I had been a huge fan of Jack Nicholson for as long as I could remember I had seen _One flew over the Cuckoos Nest_ at least half a dozen times so seeing someone on those lists who had the same name as the main character made me chuckle.

That was until I turned the page and found another one.

M. Ratched.

A second look at the shipping lists taught me that between them the characters of the movie had ordered enough lab equipment to make for quite a nice setup. Unfortunately they, or the person behind this scheme, had been careful enough not to have everything send to one place.

All of the orders had been send to different homes in different towns, leaving me with nothing but a couple of false names and the certainty that we had a dangerous situation on our hands.

"You want some coffee?" a woman standing in the doorway asked.

"Thanks!" I smiled, taking the mug of steaming liquid from her.

"I figured you might need it, being holed up in this pathetic excuse for an office all day," she said appologetically. "I'm Angela by the way. Angela Weber."

I'm Edward Masen," I said, shaking her hand . "And really......it's not that bad." I had seen worse. At least we had a private space over here. Most of the times we were assigned some wobbly desk amidst the other detectives where we were scowled at all day.

"I'm sorry if some of us come off as rather....hostile," she said, leaning against the door frame. "It's just that this station has gone through a lot lately. It's fair to say that we've had quite a few outsiders come in and tell us what to do. Most of the people working here are kind of sick of it."

"I've heard about some of that," I replied, careful not to chase her away or make her feel uncomfortable. "Not that I want to pry."

"No, not at all," she shrugged. "I guess I'm as good as anyone if you want the real story."

"The real story?"

"Let's just say there are multiple versions of this event," she spoke in a soft voice, closing the door behind her. "My version isn't the one told very often around here."

"I wouldn't want to get you into trouble," I said. I was getting really curious as to what it was that she would tell me – I guess you could call that an occupational habit – but I couldn't get a girl as nice as her into trouble just to satisfy my base need for office gossip.

"I'm in enough trouble about it as it is already," she smirked. "And anyway.......I've got Denali and Mulder on my back so I'm pretty safe. No one in their right mind would piss the two of them off."

"Yeah," I chuckled. "I kind of found that out yesterday."

"I heard about that," she smiled. "Anyway.....what do you know about Denali's predecessor?"

"Not that much," I said. "I heard he got promoted to Chief of Police after some scandal?" I had figured the story detective Weber was going to tell me had something to do with it.

"Scandal," she said with a humorous chuckle. "You could call it that....."

She took a deep breath, hugging the mug of steaming coffee in her hands while staring at the wall beside me.

"What do you know about the Volturi crime family?"

"Nothing apart from the obvious," I shrugged. I had read up on the usual suspects before heading to this town. I had read about the Volturi as being a mobster family who had been controlling most of the economy of this town for as long as most people could remember.

"Chief Swan was a good chief, one of the last of his kind if you ask me. It never sat well with him that Aro Volturi and his criminal friends were able to roam freely so he decided to do something about it." She looked at me, letting the information sink in. "Of course only months into the investigation a raid into one of the Volturi's warehouses went horribly wrong and a couple of days later a picture showed up of him sipping branding with Aro himself."

"That must have caused quite a stir," I whistled.

"It did," she barked. "What amazed me most about it was that a lot of the police officers of this beautiful town were all too eager to believe the picture was for real."

"And you didn't?"

"I was still a student at the Police Academy back then,"she shrugged. "They didn't care about what I thought."

"What happened?"

"There was an investigation and Chief Swan handed in his badge and left town before anyone could fire him," detective Weber's tone had turned fierce all of a sudden. "His former best friend lead the bloodhound gang out for the chiefs blood. You may know the guy, he's currently sitting behind Chief Swan's desk."

"You mean he's the new Chief of Police?" I said.

"None other," she sighed.

"And you think he had something to do with the raid going wrong?"

"Nothing I can prove," she said, her frustration apparent in her voice. "It was pretty damn remarkable though that the new chief seemed all too eager to keep things quiet. No one was allowed to talk to the press about what had happened. It was almost as if he didn't want people to dig too deeply into the matter. Like he was afraid about what they would be uncovering.....if you know what I mean."

She jumped a little as her phone started ringing and I couldn't blame her. Here she was, dishing out the dirt on her chief in the middle of a busy police station. "Sorry," she said, looking at the screen. "I have to take this."

"It's okay," I said, returning my attention to the documents in front of me, while trying to process the information she had just given me. This town was more messed up than I ever could have guessed .

"That was one of my friends." I almost jumped as she spoke again.

"Sorry," she giggled. "I didn't mean to scare you."

"I'm not that easily scared," I laughed.

"Well......" she seemed a bit nervous about something. "Kate and chief Trevelyan are going to kill me for saying this but the boss said you could be trusted." She shifted nervously in the door frame.

"Apparently one of the members of The Pack is willing to talk in exchange for immunity. I'm headed downtown to meet up with him and someone from the DA's office to see what we're dealing with and I wondered if you wanted to tag along."

"Thanks!" I said. "I'll jump at any excuse to get out of here." After spending a couple of hours in the broom closet I was starting to feel a little claustrophobic. A little fieldwork, even if it was just to confirm what we already knew, would be a welcome change.

"You wanna bum a ride?" she asked.

"No thanks," I said, following to the car park. "I'd rather have my own car at the ready. Just in case. That is....if you don't mind."

"No sweat," she laughed. "I would do the same I think. Transportation is everything."

"So where are we going?" I asked, stopping in front of my Volvo.

"A diner downtown. Just follow me." With that she walked in the direction of her own car, an inconspicuous dark blue sedan. A typical detective car.

I followed her to a little diner on one of the main streets of the town center. When we arrived we parked in a street over to the side so as not to draw too much attention to ourselves.

"I think it's best you stay under the radar on this one," detective Weber said apologetically. "The man involved appears to be a rather hard customer to please and I fear he will run when his demands aren't met to the letter."

"And those are....."

"All deals go through my friend and ADA Southerlyn and me are the only ones who get to go in. I don't like having nasty scum like Jacob Black dictate what I can and can't do but if we want a deal with this guy – which, believe me, we desperately want – I have no other choice. "

"Don't worry," I smiled. "I can do inconspicuous."

"Oh really?" she snorted, arching one of her brows. "I thought you FBI cowboys always went for the direct approach?"

"You mean barge in like a bull in a china shop?" I knew that local detectives thought of us as pigheaded cowboys who just barged in, took control and left them to deal with the aftermath.

Perhaps they were right in some aspects, I mean, we never stayed in one place long enough to be confronted with the consequences of our actions, but that had everything to do with the job. I always saw us more as crisis managers who came in when needed, dealt with the ongoing crisis and left to let the regular board of directors to do their job.

"Hey," she laughed. "You'd never hear me say that!"

"So you still believe they killed Crowley?" I asked.

"I don't know," she shrugged. "I know Mulder and Denali have their doubts but who else would have done it?"

"Someone wanting to hide the theft of the vials."

"So you really think some terrorist chose the wet and nuclear green town of Forks as the stage for his evil plans?" she chuckled. "You seemed smarter than that."

"Hey!" I retorted, holding my hands out n front of my chest. "I only follow the evidence!"

"Yeah right," she said, rolling her eyes. "I've got to go in."

I waited for a couple of moments before I followed detective Weber into the diner. Looking around the place I saw she had moved to a booth to the back of the place.

I recognized Jacob Black as soon as I saw him, his smug little grin still in place as he looked at the people in front of him who were obscured from sight by a large plant standing on the back of their booth. He must have been thinking he was the king of the world that moment, holding the cream of Forks' judicial system in his choke hold.

Conceited arrogant bastard.

I knew part of my reaction had at least something to do with last night. Would I really have had to use everything I had in me not to strangle the guy if he hadn't left with Bella?

I didn't think so.

But even in spite of that I didn't like him. There was something about him that made it impossible for me to trust him and the fact that all it took was some girl and he'd spill his guts about his former buddies to the police confirmed my suspicions. There was no way a guy like him would spill his guts out of the kindness of his heart. I could only hope Weber and the other two knew what they were dealing with because I had a feeling that if they didn't this guy would use that to his advantage.

Unfortunately for me the place was packed with customers and the only available booth was further away from them then I would have liked. It prevented me from having a clear view of the things that went on in their booth without craning my neck in a way that would make it blatantly obvious that I was spying on them. Even if I managed to catch a glimpse of their booth, the only thing I could see was the ugly conceited mug of Jacob Black sticking out above the railing of their booth. It also only enabled me to pick up on shreds of conversation.

From what I cold hear Black was driving a hard bargain. He wanted immunity for himself and his allies and he didn't want any of his involvement in the case to be traced back to him before the rest of his former friends was behind bars.

At least that last demand I could understand. From what I had heard The Pack was a pretty ruthless gang of criminals. If they ever found out they had a rat in their midst payback wasn't going to be pretty.

I didn't manage to catch much of the conversation afterwards. A rather loud group of women was seated in the booth next to them, making it almost impossible to hear anything else beside their gossiping.

Before I knew Angela stood and walked out, making a discreet hand gesture indicating for me to follow her.

"We've got a deal," she said with a satisfied smile. "He'll talk tomorrow."

"Why tomorrow?"

"I don't know," she shrugged. "I think he had to get back before his lowlife friends got suspicious, though I have to say I'm glad about it. It gives us some time to prepare."

"Did he say anything about Crowley?"

"Nope," she replied. "He only wants to talk to my friend. We're allowed to put as many microphones on her as we like but if we get within a ten feet radius the deal is off."

"Why would he do that?"

"Safety," she sighed. "From what Bella told me they met last night at the club and the rest of The Pack still thinks she's his latest conquest. Meeting her wouldn't raise suspicion."

"Bella?" It was out before I knew it. Somehow the pieces of the puzzle all seemed to connect in my head. The way she had looked at me when she left, her working her charms on Black only minutes after dancing with me, the look she gave me when she walked out of the club.

Was it because she had been working?

"Bella Swan," Weber explained. "She's actually the daughter of our former chief. You know? The one I told you about? She and I trained at the Academy together before they kicked her out after everything that happened with her dad. She works as a PI now."

"She's a private investigator?"

"Yep," she said, looking at me closely to gauge my reaction. "And a pretty good one too."

This didn't make any sense to me. Private investigators spied on cheating husbands or wifes or did very bad jobs at tailing employees who were suspected of fraud. They didn't get involved in criminal organizations.

"What's her involvement in this case?" I asked, trying to remain as distant and detached as I could while my whole body was straining to catch a glimpse of her.

"The agency she works for has always had a special interest in The Pack ever since one of it's detectives almost got killed during a routine stakeout a couple of years back. They think one of its members was behind it."

"And so they take matters into their own hands?" I didn't know what was worse about this, the fact that Bella was willingly placing herself in danger by going after those vicious mutts or that she was interfering in police inquiries.

"I'm glad they did," Angela said, her face serious and bordering on angry. Apparently she didn't like me questioning her friends motives. "We would never have gotten anywhere with The Pack."

"Perhaps you're right," I sighed, knowing I was in dangerous waters now. "Anyway....I should be getting back to discuss this with my partner."

"I'll be seeing you around then," she said. "You're welcome to join us in the surveillance van tomorrow. Perhaps you'll get the answers you want."

I doubted that, because the problems that had my brain spinning at this moment didn't revolve around Jacob Black. They revolved around the other person sitting in the booth at the back of the diner.

Bella Swan.

I made my way back to my car and waited while keeping an eye on the front of the diner. I knew I was in dangerous territory now and that whatever I decided to do next could seriously screw with my career.

What would I do?

Would I go back to the station, try to forget her and work on this case as if nothing had happened or would I approach her and find out who she really was even if socializing with a private investigator wasn't something that would get me that nice corner office at the Seattle department?

It was as if she had read my mind, because the moment I almost decided to back away and forget her she came out of the door, shattering what control I had. Her skin was almost sparkling in the light of the watery sun that tried to break through the clouds and the dark blue pea coat she wore enhanced her delicate features in an almost obscene way.

How could I ever think I could resist something like that?

She was in her car before I could do or say anything and almost as of out of reflex I followed her, keeping an appropriate distance so as not to attract her attention.

I stopped when she pulled into a parking lot next to an old restored building, the plaque on the facade announcing it to be the offices of Carlisle Cullen Investigations. I quickly wrote down the name to investigate it further as soon as I got back.

When I looked up again I was shocked to see that she must have been better at her job than I gave her credit for because she was back on the sidewalk, scanning the road while talking agitatedly into a mobile phone.

I knew that staying here would lead to my discovery. My car stuck out like a sore thumb amidst the much more muted colored vehicles the people of this town seemed to favor so if she suspected she was being followed it would be safe to assume she had her eye on my car.

No, this was neither the time nor the place for big revelations. I would do best to keep my distance for now.

I hit the gas, pulling out of my parking space quickly and speeding past her, thankful for the tinted windows that obscured my face from sight.

I got one last look at her before I turned a corner to see her still talking into her phone while staring at my car, confirming the fact that she had indeed discovered that it was me following her, or at least my car.

--

"What crawled up your ass and died?" Garrett asked, munching down on a sandwich as he entered our office.

"Nothing," I spat back. If he ever discovered it was Bella Swan who was responsible for this sudden migraine I would never hear the end of it. "How was your trip to the forest with detective Mulder?"

"Painful but satisfactory," he grinned.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"It means that after she was done kneeing me in the groin she reall started to warm up to me....if you know what I mean."

"Lucky you," I snorted.

"Oh and we also found this," he said ignoring my last remark as he tossed an evidence bag in my direction.

"People Magazine?" I asked, looking at the faces of Brad and Angelina as they smiled up at me from the water stained cover. "How is George Clooney going to solve this case?"

"I found it at the side of the road where Crowley and his killer had veered off into the forest along with some tire tracks. Perhaps someone was waiting for him to come pick him up."

"So you're suggesting someone stood there, waiting by the side of the road for the killer to do his business while reading a gossip magazine? Have you been watching Coen brother's movies again?"

"What's so strange about that?" Garrett quipped.

He was right, strange as it may have seemed. It did make sense for the killer to have someone pick him up after he was done.

"Apart from that, if you open the magazine you'll find that whoever read it also made notes," he grinned. "So if we get ourselves a suspect we can check their handwriting against the magazine."

"That's actually not a bad idea," I said hesitantly.

"Don't act so surprised!" Garrett chuckled. "I have been known to say something smart every now and then. How did things go with your boring old shipping lists?"

I quickly filled him in on my discoveries and what had happened at the diner, leaving out most of the details about Bella.

"So what do you say about calling it an early night?" Garrett asked as soon as I was done. "I think we've done enough hard work for today."

"You asked her out on a date ?" I smirked.

"Yeah," he admitted. "Well......it's not a date actually. Just drinks with a couple of her palls from the station, but it's a sign of progress none the less. So I've got to shower and put on some fresh clothes. Chicks seem to like that."

"I don't mind. Just let me put this stuff away first." I could do my research on Cullen Investigations and its employees at the hotel. In fact, since I would not be disturbed, this would even be better.

We made out way to the hotel were Garrett fussed like a mother goose over everything and nothing. I realized I had to postpone my plan of delving into the world of Bella Swan before Garrett had left the building after he had ran into my room asking my opinion on his outfit for the third time tonight.

"Did you grow a pair of tits in the last couple of hours?" I growled. "You're acting like a girl on prom night."

"I just want to look nice," Garrett spat back. "If you ever had an actual date you would understand."

"Get lost Scully," I snarled, slamming the door shut and locking it behind him before returning my attention to my laptop. "And by the way....what the hell happened to 'just drinks with a bunch of palls from the force'?"

He flashed me the international sign of 'friendship' before slamming the door shut and retreating back to his own room, leaving me to my research.

Some quick web search and a look at the FBI database didn't learn me that much more about Carlisle Cullen Investigations other than that they were a firm that centered around private investigations that seemed to prefer hiring beautiful women.

Whoever Carlisle Cullen may have been, a real person he was not. Neither the FBI databases nor the Register of Births Marriages and Burials held any information on him. Perhaps he was some kind of fictional character or an alias.

A search on Charlie and Bella Swan gave me more information. The Swans had been a typical American family until a coupe of years ago when Renee Swan died in a one car accident. After that Charlie Swan, newly appointed Chief of Forks police, had divided his attention between his work and his teenage daughter Bella.

Both his record and that of his daughter had been pristine until the failed warehouse raid almost a year ago. Charlie seemed to be the perfect man for the job, always cautious and correct, giving more credit to detective Weber's statement that people around here had been very quick to believe the rumors.

Bella's life had seemed to be taking the same route as her father's had. She had applied to the police force as soon as she was eligible and, apart from some minor troubles on the assault course, she had been the Academy's star student. There was no doubt that, had her father not gotten into trouble, she would have made a very good cop.

Browsing through the entries the thought that Bella was kind of a danger magnet couldn't help but escape my notice. Apart from the terrible accident that had taken her mother's life she had been in countless smaller accidents herself, one of them only a year ago, right about the time her dad had left town.

She had collided with a truck on a back road and would have died if it hadn't been for a doctor living close by. He had been on his way home from work when he found her and performed an emergency procedure to save her life.

Judging by the injuries she had sustained recently she had an almost shocking disdain for her own safety. Not a month had gone by in which she hadn't ended up in the ER with some cut or bruise that demanded attention, a fact that, combined with her current occupation, was enough to make me more worried than I should be.

The fact that she was out there taking God knows how many stupid risks had me pacing up and down my room for a good half hour, trying to think of ways to make keep her safe. If only I could find a way to watch over her and prevent her from doing something stupid such as hanging out with the wrong crowd.

Wait a minute.....There was.

No, there wasn't. Not without breaking at least half a dozen FBI rules and regulations. Rules and regulations that could have me fired when they found out I had broken them.

But wait a minute.....if I was doing this to prevent her from screwing up our case or to get more information on her dealings with The Pack it would be alright.

Yes.

I wasn't going to bug her home because I was some sick perverted stalker, misusing government equipment for his own scary obsession. I was going to do it because I was protecting her and doing my job as a special agent.

Or so I convinced myself.

Before I knew what I was doing I was at the appartment listed as Bella's address and before my mind had caught up with what I was doing and started screaming at me to back the fuck off I was breaking and entering my way in.

Getting into the girls apartment was easier said than done. The security measurements on their place rivaled that of Fort Knox and I had to use everything I knew to get around it without being noticed. Once I was inside I found myself in their living room, a large open space with a couple of doors leading to the bedrooms.

I quickly went to work placing a tap on the house phone and a bug inside one of the lamps while looking out for any clues as to what the other inhabitants of the house did for a living. The large amount of combat equipment, scattered around the house everywhere you looked, made me think they were in the same line of business as Bella was. Perhaps they were the two other women that had been with her at the club and at the hospital.

Once I was done in the family room I looked back at the doors leading to what I thought were their bedrooms. I was taking a huge risk as it was, breaking into a house while it's occupants were home, would I risk it even further by looking for her?

Once again faith seemed to decide before I could make up my mind, a sound by the front door altering me to the fact that someone would be walking through it in only a matter of seconds. If I didn't want to be caught in the middle of a clandestine operation I had to get out of this room. Quickly.

A scan of the doors leading off the family room made me decide on the one closest to me. The room opposite from it, on the other side of the family room, had pink ballet shoes painted on it and somehow Bella hadn't struck me as the kind of girl who was into ballet during those brief moments I had been close to her.

The other door that looked like it could lead to a bedroom was plain and white, just like the door I had chose, but a pair of men's shoes standing in front of it made me hope the room I had picked out was the right one.

"Well," I whispered to myself. "Here goes nothing."

I was just in time. The moment I started to close the door behind me the front door opened and the short spiky haired girl I recognized from the club stepped in, letting out a huge relieved sigh as she made her way to the bedroom on the other side of the house.

Looking behind me I saw perfection, tucked up between the crisp white sheets of her bed. Most of her body was covered but her head and parts of her shoulder stuck out. I wondered of they were cold, the temperature outside was pretty chilly.

I walked over to her bed, tentatively sticking out my hand and ghosting it over the skin exposed outside her tank top.

It felt cold.

I pulled up her sheets, careful not to wake her, to cover her up. I didn't want her to catch a cold even though being cooped up at home would prevent her from going on another suicide mission like she had obviously been on yesterday.

Being this close to her again I felt that familiar pull. It was like I was somehow drawn to her like a moth to a flame.

No, that wasn't the proper way to describe it.

It was as if there were a tiny delicate ribbon, reaching from her heart to mine. Whenever I wasn't around her the ribbon was pulled from my heart, leaving a painful and bleeding wound behind. Whenever I was in her presence the ribbon would start to shrink, drawing me closer to her like it was the only and most natural thing in the world.

I couldn't resist touching her face, relishing in the smooth cool skin as I felt it beneath the tips of my fingers.

This was wrong.

I was basically abusing a girl in her sleep. I deserved to be send to prison or to be raped by Janet Reno or something. This wasn't the person I wanted to be. I wanted to touch a woman because she wanted me to, because she desired me as much as I desired her. Not because she didn't even know I was doing it.

Still, the feeling of her soft and flawless skin of my hands felt so good, so right, it was hard to feel guilty. It was hard to feel anything, really, apart from a deep and vibrant longing to protect her. To have her by my side forever. To never let go.

"Edward," I heard her sigh, making me withdraw my hand immediately and retreat into a corner of the room. Had she woken up? Her eyes were still closed and she was still breathing deeply and regularly.

After a few tense moments in which I waited to see if she had woken up or not while trying to come up with an explanation for my presence here – which seemed an impossible task – the thought that she had actually said my name, even if it was just in her sleep, entered my brain.

The power of the feelings coursing through my body the moment that thought hit home surprised me. Yeah, I knew I had feelings for this girl, very strong feeling even, but I had never felt anything like this before.

Like she could be the one.

"Edward," she repeated, her voice slurring with sleep as she rolled onto her side. "I trust you."

She trusted me.

I broke into her home and she trusted me.

I was planning to listen in on every private conversation she had and she trusted me.

I must be one of the vilest, most disgusting specimen of the human being unworthy to breathe the crisp air on this planet. She trusted me and here I was, standing over her sleeping body with a head clouded by lust.

I had to get out of here.

"Edward," she repeated, but the changed to her voice couldn't help but escape my notice. It sounded deeper, more throaty, more.........aroused?

For the love of all things holy and sacred, was she having a sex dream about me?

"Edward," she moaned again, confirming my suspicions.

Now I really had to get out of here before I did something stupid like wake her up to find out what exactly it was that she was dreaming about.

I fled the scene like a thieve in the night, not even being remotely careful about preventing myself from making any noise. All I cared about right now was to get the hell out of here, make it to my hotel room and ponder over my next step.

Oh and take care of another little problem that had arisen......

I didn't even make it out of the building before my thoughts overtook me and forced me to lean against a wall, trying to get a grip.

As I tried to collect my thoughts and pull them out of the gutter I realized that of three things I was now absolutely certain.

The first fact that I had discovered today was that Bella Swan was a private investigator investigating the same case as I was.

Second that I should keep as far away from her as I could because she could ruin everything I had worked for in my life.

And finally that part of her, though I was yet to find out how large and potent that part really was, felt the same feelings for me as I felt for her.

As I looked at her sleeping form, so beautiful and serene like a Waterhouse painting, a fourth epiphany shot through my head like a cometh. I realized that with an almost shocking certainty that as long as I had that third, as long as she had feelings for me, nothing else mattered.

* * *

_**I hope I didn't make Stalkward too creepy in this chapter. He knows he's way out of line by breaking into her house but he just can't help himself. He wants to protect her and uses the only way he knows to do so while still going about his daily business.**_

_**Please let me know what you thought of this chapter.**_


	12. You know that I'm no good

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

* * *

**You know that I'm no good.**

_**(Victoria Valentine)**_

"I'm happy as long as you leave the Swan bitch to me," the whiny bitch kept droning on."She's going to regret the day she stole my man."

"Really?" I couldn't believe my ears.

"What?" She even had the nerve to be upset with me.

"Do you really think you could take down one of Carlisle's little whores by yourself?"

"Why not?"

Right. She really wasn't the smartest fish in the pond. Not by a long shot.

I wondered how Eleazar Denali had even managed to produce such a dumb little airhead. From what I had witnessed he was a smart and cunning man. His wife must be really stupid to explain the total lack of brain in their offspring.

"Because those bitches have had a training that makes Quantico seem like a holiday camp in comparison."

"What?" I should have known the bitch didn't even know what Quantico was. For all she knew I was talking about the most recent winner of Project Runway.

"Before Carlisle lets them loose on the unsuspecting people of Forks they undergo the most intensive combat training I have ever seen," I explain, trying to use small words so that she would understand. "The camp that provides these training is lead by two retired Navy SEALs and I can tell you, those motherfuckers don't mess around."

"So she can throw a few punches......." Tanya shrugged. "So can I."

Could anyone be more stupid than her?

"She'll be able to kill you in at least five different ways before you've even made a fist," I laughed. "But hey.....if you want to go after her. It's your funeral."

"Bitch," she muttered.

"Chin up babes," I said, trying a different tactic to get her to shut the fuck up. "Pining looks so ugly on a girl. Go find a new man and screw him senseless. Nothing can cure heart fail like a new dick to play with."

"But I want Edward!" she whined.

"Yeah, well too bad he doesn't want you," I growled, pissed because my tactic obviously wasn't working.

Fortunately right that moment my phone went off, giving me some relieve from the whine fest in front of me.

"Hey babes," I said, after I looked at the name on the display. "How are things going in the real world?"

"_Fine,"_ she replied. _"We're almost there, just a few more bits and pieces before we can start mass production on the antidote." _

"And the rest?"

_"I have a feeling he's starting to suspect something,"_ she sighed. _"He's not nearly as.....responsive to me as he was in the beginning." _

"Work your magic sweets," I replied. "We can't have him suspect anything."

"_I know,"_ she said, her voice frustrated and disgruntled. _"I'm not going to fuck this up okay? I'm just saying that I may need some more time if I want the keep the fucking Prodigal Son from asking too many questions." _

"We don't have time, you know that," I said. "The Medical Convention is in a couple of days and we've got to get everything ready by then. It's not like we're going to get a second chance if we screw this up."

"_Tell me something I didn't already know,"_ she growled. _"Just don't tell James." _

"If you do your job I won't have to."

"_Have faith babes,"_ she reassured me. "_Did I ever let you down?" _

She had a point there. So far she had pulled off most of the work on our little.....enterprise. While James had been developing the virus and I had been keeping my eye on the angels and setting up everything in Forks she had infiltrated in one of the largest pharmaceutical companies this country had, made it to second in command and let one of its labs develop a vaccine for the disease we had created without the actual owner of the company suspecting a thing.

I mean, that's not something just any sexy Mexican with a big mouth and even bigger boobs could pull off.

"Just don't screw this up," I warned one last time before breaking the connection and turning back to Braindamage Barbie who was gawking at me like I had just grown a third boob.

"What?" I spat.

"What was all that about?"

"Nothing you need to worry your pretty little head about," I purred, ruffling her hair.

"Stop treating me like I'm a child," she spat.

"Then you'd better stop behaving like a spoiled little brat, princess," I quipped. "Anyway, shouldn't you be getting back to mommy and daddy?"

As far as her parents were concerned Tanya was spending her days at a cosmetic institute, training to be a beautician.

I wished she was.

She growled at me before grabbing her purse and looking at the back door. "Do you think James would like me to say goodbye to him?"

"What do _you_ think?" I snorted. We both knew better than to disturb James when he was working.

"Does he ever stop working?" she asked, her irritation clear in her voice.

I had to suppress a snort. Sure, my baby stopped working alright....the moment her sorry ass had left the building.

We had only brought her into our little circle to keep tabs on her dad, she didn't even know what it was that we were working on and we sure as hell weren't going to tell her. She'd spill every secret we'd told her before she was even back on the main road.

Unfortunately for us she had taken her job as our snitch a little too seriously and convinced herself that now she played with the bad guys she actually belonged on the wrong side of the law.

Pathetic!

I had never seen a more inadequate criminal that she was.

Still, as much as I liked to tell her the truth and chase her out of my home with a hot poker we needed her. We needed the information she could give us. Especially now that the Feds had gotten involved.

"Will you tell him I stopped by?" she asked hopefully.

"Sure," I said, rolling my eyes.

"I'll see you tomorrow then," she said, pulling me into a hug before I could stop her. "I can't wait."

Somehow she had convinced herself that just because we shared a dick we were best friends forever. As if she had any claim on my baby's cock. The only reason she ever got near it was because I allowed it.

Because he needed to screw her to get her on our team.

For what he had told me she was a lousy lay to booth and I had to work like a fucking maniac to erase the memory of her from his mind before it traumatized him and he would go fucking frigid on me.

"Is she gone yet?" James growled as I entered the lab.

"Yep."

"Thank God," he growled. "I'm fucking starving!"

"Then why didn't you come into the house for lunch?"

"I was afraid she'd make me have sex with her again," he muttered.

"Nice criminal you are!" I snorted. "Brewing on your master scheme to take over the world while hiding out in your lab because you're afraid of a little middle class slut."

"Fuck you!" he spat.

"You wish!" I chuckled.

"I do actually," he laughed back.

"Sorry," I said, turning my back on him. "I actually have a job to do, you know? I'm not some kind of plaything you can keep around to fuck when you feel like it."

He pulled me back against him, letting me feel his erection as it pressed into my back while his hands massaged my breast. "We will finish this after you bring me back my guinea pig," he growled in my ear, biting down hard on my earlobe.

"I wouldn't have it any other way," I groaned, getting too damn horny for my own good.

"Now go," he said, taking a step back and swatting my ass. "Before we screw up the plan."

"You do that again and it will be your last action on earth asshole," I snarled. I mean, I loved him and all that but that didn't give him the right to smack my ass and dismiss me like I was his fucking slave. "I'm not Tanya fucking Denali who gets off on being ordered around."

"Just do your job scary bitch," he spat back. It was a good thing I knew he was joking.

A good thing for him

Or he would have found himself without his testicles.

"Asshole," I barked over my shoulder as I made my way to my car. Seriously. This whole scheme was turning him into an arrogant ass already. I dreaded what he would be like if he actually pulled it off.

Arrogance would only make you sloppy. And sloppiness would get you arrested.

Take the whole thing in the hospital for instance.

After I had done all the preparations, digging my sorry ass though all of their personnel records in search for the perfect candidate and even had to fuck some fat, balding pharmacist, he ended up screwing it all up because his genius brain didn't think the cops would be interested in the contents of the lab after checking the surveillance tapes.

I should have known you can never send a man to do a woman's job. Or any other job that involved a complex thought process. That was just too hard for a man to do with all the blood running to his dick, depriving his poor brain from the means of being brilliant.

When he found out the police knew about the virus being stolen James had just shrugged and said that there was no way they'd trace the theft back to us. Like anyone would believe this didn't brother him

Like I hadn't seen the mess he made in the storage room when he vented his frustration on a couple of unsuspecting cardboard boxes.

I guess he was right though. As long as there was no evidence leading back to us we were pretty safe. But with The Pack ready to burst I wasn't about to live dangerously.

That last thing was something even I hadn't factored into the equation.

Who knew little Bella Swan had it in her to bring down The Pack?

I sure as hell didn't.

I should have known though. She was the offspring of a pretty decent cop, not some dick hungry little slapper like the one before her. That girl – Lauren – had been so easy to get rid of.

I chuckled as I remembered my little afternoon of fun.

All it had taken was for James to call the agency and tell them some cock and bull story about being a corporate hotshot who was afraid the competition was going to break into his lab and steal his latest invention.

Of course they had send some bored angel over to install some basic security stuff to monitor the lab from Angel Headquarters and – as luck and a lot of planning had it – that angel was Lauren. James had her on her knees, sucking his dick like it was a fucking lollipop in ten minutes flat.

That's when I walked in.

After she had fled the house James had called the office claiming the bitch had all but raped him and had her fired before the day was done.

Just another afternoon of fun.

Or so I thought.

If only I had fucking known who they'd hire to replace her I would have kept my damn mouth shut.

Of course the Swan girl's actions had complicated our plan of picking off the angels one by one. I would have thought we had taken at least one out by now.

Where had it all gone wrong?

Our plan had been so good.

Watertight.

Of course it had been.....I made it.

We would frame The Pack for the murder of Tyler Crowley and call in the help of Carlisle and his little army of skanks. This would trigger them to execute some kind of covert operation at the club for which they would pick the Swan girl. Inexperience on the side of the Swan girl and an appetite for destruction on the side of The Pack would do the rest and before the breaking of dawn one of the angels would find herself in heaven.

From there on it would be so easy to finish off the other two. They were far too emotional. Losing their buddie would reduce them to emotional puddles of goo.

It would be so simple.

Or so I had thought.

Until the Swan girl started focusing her attention on the one son of a bitch in the gang who was open to her suggestion.

Now I had to think of a new plan to end her life.

I parked my car at the edge of town, taking a bus downtown to where Mike Newton lived. I didn't want to run any risk of my car being spotted anywhere near the prison where they kept him locked up so I would just take his car instead.

He wouldn't mind, being in prison and all.

And after today it wouldn't matter what he thought. He'd be a dead man walking.

Literally.

I had been a little peeved about my complete lack of progress on the Swan girl. I would have thought that with the scandal surrounding her dad's dismissal from the force there would be loads of thing we could use against her.

So far I'd found none.

Sure, I had enough information about the whole damn thing to write a book on it but for some strange reason no one had been able to give me any evidence.

I had nothing to provoke her with, apart from the story she already knew. And it sucked.

Big time.

Especially because that reduced me to sucking up to some little twerp who managed to get himself arrested.

Loser.

At least it was better than sitting on my ass listening to Tanya droning on about her stupid ex-boyfriend and the bitch Bella Swan who stole him from her all day.

Again. Bella Swan.

I was so sick of hearing that name. I hoped my plan would work and those damn Italians would kill her before the week was over.

I had to break into the guy's apartment first to get the keys to his car, hoping it would be in the parking lot round the back because I would sure look pretty damn stupid walking down the street waving a set of car keys around.

The place was the usual mess – sloppy adult male combined with a police raid equals post thunderstorm look – but lucky for me the hall table seemed to have come out of the whole thing unscathed. I managed to spot the car keys pretty soon and made my way out of the rat hole before I could contract rabies or something.

Walking to the parking lot I climbed on top of some soccer mom van and pressed the button on the keys, holding it out in front of me.

The lights on a big black Hummer right in front of me lit up.

Bingo!

Boy that guy must have the tiniest baby dick on the planet if he needed such a big ass car to compensate for it. Even I had a pretty steep climb ahead of me if I wanted to get into the damn thing and I had a height that would make Giselle Bundchen seem like a fucking midget. The good thing about this monster was that it purred like a baby and got me to prison in no time at all.

"You need to wait for visiting hours miss," the pencil pusher at the front desk barked at me. "We can't just allow visitors to walk in and out at their own disposal. This is a prison, not a hotel."

"I'm not a......" I had to work very hard to keep the f-bombs out of my vocabulary. If I wanted to pass for a lawyer it would do me no good toilet one slip right now. "I am mister Newtons legal council," I stated, taking deep breaths to keep myself from dragging the man over the desk an beating him into a pulp.

"Ah," he said, a little peeved as I showed him my fake I.D. and waited to get my badge and for someone to arrive to take me to the visiting room.

--

A few hours later I was driving the big ass Hummer down the quiet little forest road, listening to Mike Newton bitching and whining about me taking his car.

Soooooo typical.

I had been in the business of using my body to get what I want for too long not to know that if you really wanted to hit a guy where it hurt you did best to go after his car. Especially if it was all big and shiny like this one.

At least James was different.

He was a whole lot less predictable than this one, that's for sure. I wondered what a smart and talented girl like Bella Swan would ever have seen in this guy. I mean, he wasn't ugly but he wasn't exactly Mr. Darcy either and he sure as hell didn't act like one.

The thing I liked best about dating a bad guy was the fact that you never really knew what he would come up with now. Not knowing how he was going to react if you did something was a nice change from all the boring predictable guys I had dated up until I met my baby two years ago.

I had to hand it to him, any guy who still manages to fascinate his girl after two years of spending the better part of every day with him would have to be pretty damn amazing.

As if the fact that he damn well knew how to please a woman wouldn't have made me think that. The first time we had sex I thought I was going to explode. I came so hard I thought the bed was shaking with me.

It was also James who opened my eyes to the real Carlisle Cullen. He was there when I woke up and he took care of me when my fellow angels deserted me, even though he had never even met me. He worked at the hospital as a nurse so – apart from his usual duties – he was free to spend time with me outside of the regular visiting hours.

Those first days after I had regained consciousness he would just drop by during his shift and talk to me while I waited for Alice and Carmen to drop by or Carlisle to call me. I came to value our conversations more and more. They were pretty much all I had during the day, apart from my usual fix of soap opera's and talk shows.

He was the one I confided in when finally, after days of waiting I gave up hope of hearing from the people who were as close to me as any family ever could be, I crumbled.

He held me as I cried, told me it was going to be okay. That I would find new friends and new goals to keep me going.

And I told him everything.

Every last secret.

Because he was being nice and he listened to me.

Really listened to me.

It had been years since that had happened.

It was then that I realized the truth about Carlisle. That I saw him for the fucked up hypocrite he really was.

How he would go on and on about how we needed to put our own safety first but how he didn't hesitate to send us into life threatening situations.

How he told us he wanted to take us away from all the pain and harshness of the reality we had been brought up in but still he had no qualms about reducing us to common whores when we needed to seduce some lame ass piece of information out of a deranged psycho.

How he told us we were all so precious to him but he couldn't even be bothered sending a damn get well card when you ended up in hospital.

By the time I was ready to be released from hospital I had found my new goal in life.

To get my revenge.

Come what may.

So I faked psychological problems from the fall out of being shot by one of those damn dogs and bowed out gracefully while helping James develop his plan. Having to play nice to Carlisle and his gang of traitors again was one of the hardest things I ever had to do. They were all smiles and fake concern, going on and on about how the hospital never let them visit me and whether I had gotten their cards and the presents they send me.

Fucking liars.

They had forgotten me as soon as I had been carted of to hospital. They knew that as well as I did. I wasn't surprised when they had my replacement lined up only a moth after I had left. They must have had her on stand by all along.

I realized there and then that I hated them with every fiber of my being and that I would do everything in my power to get my revenge, even if I had to blow up an entire village to do so.

It was that afternoon, as I got back, that James had told me about his master plan.

II knew deep down inside that I should have been disgusted by it but, even to my own surprise I wasn't.

I was fucking elated.

It meant I had my chance of revenge and James was going to help me.

Sure, the thought that we were killing a lot of people did get to me a little. I mean, I had spend all those years trying to make it a safe place and now I was supposed to send the good people of Forks to hell so that my baby could prove himself and get revenge on the Brandon girl, that's not something you just decide to do on a lazy afternoon.

Alice.

I had been more than a little surprised when James told me about her. I knew she had been locked up in the loony bin at some point but I never knew James actually worked at that place.

Small fucking world huh?

"Cat got your tongue?" Newton chuckled. How the fuck do I always end up in the presence of the most obnoxious specimen of the human being this planet has ever produced?

I personally challenge everyone to spend a day with Tanya Denali and Mike Newton and not turn into a fucking terrorist by late noon.

"Shut up," I spit back. "We're here."

I guess I should be happy Newton is all talkative and stuff. How else would I have learned of the truth behind Carlie Swan's dismissal?

Not from his former colleagues.

For some strange fucked up reason they had always stuck to the official reading of the story which told that Charles Swan resigned after a building conflict between him and his staff had arisen. The existence of the photograph had always been kept from the media, even though the DA's office had investigated the matter.

If Mike was right and everyone at the station hated Charlie's guts then why didn't they leak the picture? It was what I would have done.

Perhaps Aro was behind it.

The slimy son of a bitch always had his ways of making people do what he wanted them to do. If he had told them to keep their fucking mouths shut then they would have, even if they hated his guts.

Silence is gold.

In Aro's case quite literally.

I drove past the house and parked the car round the back, nice and close to the shed we had converted into a high tech lab for James.

"Follow me," I said, trying to get this over with as soon as possible.

It had been one of James more genius ideas to use this messed up idiot for the master plan. We had to get rid of him anyway – no loose ends and all – and what better way to do so than to turn him into a weapon of mass destruction?

Of course infecting him with the virus and keeping him locked up in a glass quarantine room at the back of the lab would also enable us to study the development of the virus in the human body so we knew how long we would have before all hell would break loose and we could put the antidote to good use.

It would make us rich beyond our wildest dreams.

Not only would we be seen as the great and only salvation of America, since we were major stockholders in the only company that provided the sick with a way to survive we were bound to make a killing.

All because James had been the sidekick of doctor Doom.

All because of an accidental discovery.

"So how do you want to do this?" Newton asked as he followed me around the back yard like a puppy.

"Do what?" What the hell was the buy thinking we would do. At least we where in the building now. Only a few more steps and I would be rid of the little twerp once and for all.

Surely he wouldn't think......

"Fuck," he replied, as if it was the most logical thing in the world.

I couldn't hold back my laughter. "What?" I choked, as I opened the door to the lab.

James didn't even look up from his microscope as we walked in and I don't think Newton even noticed him as he continued his 'I'm Gods gift to women and you'd better see that soon' speech.

"There's no need to look all disgusted sweetheart," he growled, making me wonder if I had gone too far.

What the hell. It was not like he was going to run away from me.

And even if he did....he would never get very far.

"There's no way in hell I'm letting you near me," I said, in a tone that would leave him in no doubt of my seriousness.

"Then what did you bring me all the way out here for?"

He definitely wasn't very smart. He let me drag him into a lab, grab a needle and stand behind him without even checking to see if he was safe. It was clear he had never read Darwin's theory about the survival of the fittest or even if he did, he sure as hell wasn't one of the fit.

He was dead meat.

I chuckled to myself as I drove the needle into his flesh, emptying its contents in Mike Newton's body.

"Owch!" he yelled, spinning around like a basketball. "What the hell?"

"We brought you here to test our product silly!" I giggled, feeling James's presence behind me.

"Do you think I'm some kind of lab rat or something?" he shrieked, clutching his side.

"Close enough," I laughed. I didn't have the heart to tell him that was exactly what he was.

Yet.

"What did you inject me with anyway?" he demanded, taking a few steps backwards.

"Something that's going to change your fucking life," James said, before I could reply as we drove Newton backward even further, until he had unwittingly ended the room where he would be spending most of his remaining time on this planet.

End it would be closer to the truth.

James pushed the button and the big glass doors slided shut, locking Newton safely out of reach for the disease to spread before its time.

"I believe a celebration is in order?" James chuckled, leaning against the glass.

"You did promise me you would finish what we started earlier," I shrugged, moving towards the door.

He was behind me in less than no time and I shivered with anticipation as one of his hands settles on my ass while the other rubbed up and down my side, ghosting over the swell of my breast with every stroke.

"Do I make you horny baby?" he growls in my ear.

I let out a mangled cry because, even though he was quoting Austin fucking Powers, he still makes my whole body feel like it's on fire.

"Answer me," he demands, the hand on my ass moving to the front and dipping under the hem of my shirt.

"Yes," I pant, moving my legs a little bit apart to accommodate him.

"Tell me what you want me to do," he barks, his finger pushing my underwear aside and parting my wet folds.

"Fuck me," I moan.

"My pleasure," he chuckles.

Before I know what is going on my ass lands on the cold surface of a lab table and I can just see my favorite pair of ruffles panties flying through the air as he chucks them away.

"Be a good girl and open up," he orders as he unbuttons and unzips his jeans, his hard dick springing forward as soon as it's released from its prison.

"Have you ever known me not to be a good girl?" I grin as I pull his body against me by his shoulders.

We both moan as he sheathes himself inside me in one fluent thrust, everything else forgotten for the moment.

He sets a pace, stroking in and out of me in an excruciatingly slow rhythm. The damn fucker is teasing me. He knows how worked up I get when he does shit like that.

"Are you ever going to fuck me properly?" I growl in his ear, my nails digging into his shoulders through his shirt.

"Patience," he grins like the evil son of a bitch he is.

"I'm done being patient," I snarl. "Faster bitch!"

"I love it when you order me around," he groans, slamming into me with a force that makes the glass vials and containers rattle as the table shakes with us.

"Like that baby," my fingers gripping his shoulders with more force as I feel myself thundering towards bliss.

"Fuck!" he hisses as he feels my walls clamping around him with my release. It was all it took for him to follow me over the edge, spilling inside me as he cums.

I collapse against his shoulder, totally spend by the force of my climax. The only things my body is able to register is my baby, kissing my neck as he tries to catch his breath and Mike Newton staring at us with open mouth from his little cell at the back of the room.

About time that guy saw what good sex is all about.

"Now get the fuck off that table," James orders as he zips his jeans back up. "I have work to do."

"Sure baby," I grin. "I've got to get back to work anyway. Gotta see a man about a horse."

"Huh?' James looked at me as if I'd gone mad.

"I keep forgetting you grew up in the city," I snickered. "I've got to see the Volturi aout a certain photograph that will bring down the Swan girl."

"Excellent," he said, never taking his eyes from his work. "Knock 'em dead baby."

"You know I will," I grinned, unable to resist the urge of swatting his ass as I walk past him.

"And don't fuck up this time," the son of a bitch had the nerve to call after me.

As if I wasn't pissed off enough about the fact that I had been bested.

I wouldn't screw up this time.

Not even if I had to break the Swan girls pretty little neck myself.

Good people of Forks beware.

We're coming to get you.

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_**Yep. Victoria is one screwed up woman but who wouldn't be if you take into account what she's gone through. I hope this chapter gave you some insight into their plans and why Victoria decided to betray her former friends. I think you'll have guessed that James and his ability to poison her mind in her moment of weakness had a lot to do with that.**_

_**From the next chapter onwards we'll be starting to see some action and some Jasper. I hope to have the next chapter (Bella's POV) up on Monday.**_

_**For now, please let me know what you thought of this.**_


	13. Are you in?

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

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GOOD HEAVENS! I THINK I'M FINALLY GOING TO BE ABLE TO UPDATE. WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT?

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_**The dress Bella is wearing in this chapter is modeled after the green dress Keira Knightly wore in Atonement (I'm so in love with that dress). If you want to get a visual for Tuxward look at the pictures from last nights Academy Awards. Nuff said.**_

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**Are you in?**

_**(Bella Swan)**_

I sat on the sofa, blankly staring at the photograph in front of me.

I knew it.

I knew it all along.

This was the original.

This was the face of the scumbag who framed my dad.

"Bella?" I recognized Alice's voice beside me. "Bella, please say something."

I looked around me to see the apartment had grown dark while I had been wrapped up in my thoughts. A lot of time must have passed.

"Should I slap her?" Rose's voice sounded.

"No," I could feel Alice's frame shake as she shook her head. "I think she's coming around again."

"Look at this," I said. For the time being I was unable to explain the photograph to them. Luckily it was pretty much self explanatory.

"What the......" Rose muttered as she took the picture from my hands.

"Hell?" Alice added, as she peaked over Rose's shoulder.

"Where did you get this?" Rose asked.

"It was lying on the mat in the foyer when I got back," I said in a shaky voice. "Someone must have shoved it under the door."

"Do you still have the envelope?" she continued. Rose was always the first one to spring into action mode at moments such as these.

I nodded. "I think it's around here somewhere. It may have dropped to the floor." I spotted the big Manila envelope a few feet away from me and reached out to grab it.

"Leave it," Rose said quickly. "I want to dust it for fingerprints." She turned to Alice who was still looking from the photograph to me. "Alice, can you get me my spy kit?"

"Sure babes," Alice said, trying to make her voice sound lighter than it was.

She returned in no time, handing Rose her trusty little briefcase. "I don't think whoever delivered this was stupid enough to leave any evidence but you never know....." she said as she got to work.

"I knew it,' I muttered to no one in particular. "I knew Trevelyan was a two faced piece of shit all along. I just never though he would stoop as low as to betray his own buddies."

I looked back at the photograph. It was the same picture they had used to frame my dad. I didn't have to concentrate very hard to conjure up the image of that disastrous photograph. The only thing different about this one was the fact that, in stead of my dad, Alistair Trevelyan was sitting next to Aro Volturi in this one, their hands clasped together and both their faces smiling as if someone had just told a joke.

This had to be the original.

"Do we know if this is the real one?" Alice must have guessed my thoughts.

"Look at it," I said, holding it out to her. "It looks real. The other one didn't."

She nodded. Both Rose and Alice had agreed with me all along that there was something wrong with the photograph that had been my father's undoing. You couldn't really put your finger on what was wrong with it exactly but something about it was just.....off.

This one didn't evoke those kind of feelings.

This one looked right.

Or was it because I wanted it to look right?

"What do you think Ally?" I asked. "Give me your honest opinion."

"It looks real," she said hesitantly after looking at the picture for a few moments. "But I can't say anything about it until I have a good look at it in the lab."

"Same thing goes for me," Rose added. "There are no fingerprints on the envelope but I would still like to take it with me to the office tomorrow to see if there's any DNA material on the adhesive edge."

"Thanks guys," I sighed, realizing how hard they were trying to solve my problem.

"There's nothing to be thankful for," Rose chided, resting her hand on my back. "We angels stick together Bella. We'll always have your back. Right Al?" She looked at Alice who was nodding furiously. "Now I want to have both of you ladies in my room in your sweats in under ten minutes. We're in dire need of a sleepover and some Leo."

"I hope you changed your sheets after that last little sleepover you had," Alice growled. "I want none of Bosleys little swimmers coming anywhere near me."

"Eww!" Both Rose and I gasped.

"Thanks for the visual sweets," Rose huffed. "But don't worry, I changed the bedding this morning."

"Just checking," Alice shrugged before disappearing into her bedroom.

Part of me didn't want to spend the evening snuggled up underneath the covers with my two best friends watching Baz Luhrman's _Romeo + Juliet _for the umpteenth time. That part wanted to jump into the car, drive to Alistair Trevelyan's home and force the truth out of him even if it killed him.

I knew that wouldn't solve anything.

If I was going to get my revenge – the only kind of revenge that would restore my dad's reputation – we needed to proceed carefully. For now I would just have to settle for comfort and a decent nights sleep.

--

"You never did tell us how good old Bosley is in the sack," Alice grinned as we walked into the office the next morning, trying to ignore Lauren's scowling.

"Lets just say I'm a very happy little camper at the moment," Rose grinned. "The things he can do with his dick......" Her voice trailed off and I thought I might have seen her swoon for a moment.

"Alright, alright," Alice growled. "I didn't ask for that much detail!"

"You know what would really freak him out?" Rose asked, sparks dancing in her eyes.

"What?" Alice asked tentatively. "This isn't going to be something sexual is it? I mean.....I like sex as much as the next girl but I would prefer not to hear – or see – you getting busy with our boss. Again."

"You wish!" Rose spat. "No, I was just thinking about scaring the crap out of him. I still need to get even with him for the last time he did that to me."

I remembered that. Rose had been washing her car – her pride and joy – and had been so wrapped up in her work she hadn't heard Emmett approach. When he made a sound she spun round so fast her feet landed in her bucket standing beside her, ruining her shoes.

Rose took shoes very seriously.

"On three I want you both to greet him like he were Carlisle," she announced. "You get that?"

We both nodded. This was going to be good. You didn't have to be a genius to notice how Bosley always got a little hard when we greeted Carlisle. Time to turn the tables.

"Good morning Bosley," we sang as Rose threw the door open.

Emmett almost choked on his coffee, the liquid spraying all over the desk and the papers in front of him. " G-Good m-morning angels," he hiccuped as he tried to catch his breath.

"You okay there Boss?" Alice chuckled. "Or do you need Rosey to perform the Heimlich maneuver?"

"I'm fine," he wheezed. "I was actually just about to call you in. How did you guess you were needed?"

"We didn't," I said, hoping it wouldn't be something to distract us from nailing Trevelyan's sorry ass. "We came in to do some research of our own."

"Anything interesting going on?" he asked.

"I found out who framed my dad."

"Damn! Is it someone we know?"

"The new chief," I explained handing him the photograph.

"Son of a bitch!" he whistled as he looked at the picture right as the phone on his desk started ringing.

I groaned as I sank down onto the sofa in between Alice and Rose.

That would be Carlisle with our next assignment which meant no time to investigate the photograph.

"_Good morning angels,"_ Carlisle greeted.

"Good morning Carlisle," We all replied, though I had trouble replying with as much cheerfulness as usual.

"_What is the matter girls?_" Carlisle asked in a worried voice. I didn't know how he did it, but even though we had never met face to face Carlisle knew us better than anyone. He had some kind of strange sixth sense for picking up our moods through our voices. He always knew if something was off.

"Someone send Bella a photograph of Alistair Trevelyan shaking hands with Aro Volturi. The date on the back says the meeting took place only days before the warehouse raid," Rose explained.

"_Do we know if it's genuine?" _

I was beginning to feel a little peeved about everyone doubting the authenticity of this picture I had been send. Back when it was my dad who had been accused of treachery no one had doubted it. Why was it so fucking hard for everyone to believe he was innocent?

"It has to be," I said, my voice sounding perhaps a little more snide than I had meant.

"I could investigate it?" Rose suggested.

"It would take too long to do that properly," I said, tapping my foot impatiently. "We need to investigate this right now," I said, hoping to get Carlisle's permission to proceed.

"_I understand your urge to do so,"_ Carlisle replied. "_But I would ask you to hold of on undertaking __any actions for now." _

"I have to do something Carlisle!" I yelled, jumping up from the couch. "I can't just let him get away with this! He ruined my dad's life!"

I couldn't believe he was asking me to just drop the whole matter – even if it was just for the time being. This was the one way to prove Charlie's innocence. We couldn't just wait and hope no one would destroy the evidence in this case. We had to act now!

"_We cannot let the lust for revenge rule our minds, Isabella," _Carlisle's calm voice answered._ "I know you want to make Trevelyan pay for what he did and that it's frustrating to have to stand back but – as cruel as it may sound – there are more urgent matters at hand now and you cannot let this distract you." _

"Please Bella," Alice added, laying her hand on my arm and slowly pulling me back to the couch. "Listen to Carlisle. We need you right now. We can't go fighting off the bad guys without kick ass Bella on our side."

Kick ass Bella indeed.

Alice had come up with that nickname for me when I completely surprised her the first time she had pitched a fight with me.

She had lost. Much to her surprise.

"Just for now," Rosalie added.

"Just for now," I growled, letting Alice wrap her arms around me.

Having such a moral sense of duty sucked ass.

Major league.

All I wanted was to go after that son of a bitch Trevelyan and the whole Volturi-clan but instead I would have to focus on some idiot and his evil schema to wipe out the population of the US.

Like that was going to work.

I tried to push my own problems to the back of my mind. It wouldn't do me any good to keep nagging Carlisle about it. It wasn't like he was going to change his mind anyway.

If I wanted to go after Trevelyan I would have to solve this matter first and if I wanted to do that I'd better concentrate on whatever it was Carlisle was going to tell us.

"_As you may know Forks general Hospital is hosting a big pharmaceutical conference next week." _

We nodded, having seen the announcements at the hospital when we broke into the morgue a few days ago.

"_The keynote speaker at the conference will be a man called Jasper Whitlock, CEO of Whitlock Pharmaceuticals......" _

"Son of a bitch," Alice hissed.

I didn't think Carlisle heard her and even if he did he acted as if nothing had happened as we stared at Alice who had turned white as a sheet at the mention of the name.

"_The company has recently developed a new, relatively cheap, vaccine against flu-infection which has just come onto the market.." _

"Now that's a freaky coincidence," Rose interrupted.

"_It is, Rosalie,"_ Carlisle agreed. _"The fact that four vials containing an ancient and very deadly version of the disease Mr. Whitlock aims to cure went missing only days before he arrives is something that warrants our attention." _

"So what would you have us do?" Alice spat.

Rose and I both looked at her in wonder. This wasn't the Alice we knew and loved. Even though the pixie could be a fierce opponent she would never use harsh words – or even a harsh tone – against those she loved except for when they showed resistance during makeovers.

This just wasn't like her.

"_Mr. Whitlock is hosting a benefit at the hospital tonight. He has worked together with UNICEF to set up a vaccination program for children in development countries and is trying to raise money for it." _

"Does that mean we are going out tonight?' Rose chuckled.

"_The four of you will be on the guest list for tonight's event," _Carlisle replied.

"Four?" I asked.

"_Yes,_" Carlisle answered. _"Tonight Emmett will be joining you." _

"A fourth angel?" Rose snorted as we watched Emmett's face which had become an odd mixture of joyful anticipation and utter dread.

"_You could put it like that," _Carlisle chuckled. _"Since the pharmaceutical world is still dominated by men I figured it would be beneficial to have Emmett tag along. I'm sure you ladies can steer him though the event." _

"No problem Carlisle," all three of us laughed together.

"_As always I'm asking you to please be careful. This is shaping up to be the most dangerous and precarious mission I have even asked my angels to take on. The safety of the people of Forks may very well depend on you and they need their angels strong and fit." _

"We will be careful Carlisle," I answered, knowing most of his remark was aimed at me.

"_I would also like you to thread carefully at the hospital,"_ he added._ "The hospital has got a lot riding on this event, not to mention the damage a huge ruckus could do to the vaccination program."_

"Boo fucking hoo," I heard Alice mutter under her breath.

"We will try to remain under the radar Carlisle," I quickly said, hoping it would drown out Alice's reaction. "Do you think Whitlock had anything to do with the theft?"

"Wouldn't surprise me," Alice snorted.

"_I don't think so," _Carlisle replied, still pretending he didn't hear what Alice was saying. _"Whitlock Pharmaceuticals has put a lot of money and effort into developing this vaccine and its presentation. It would seen unlikely for them to cause a major ruckus during its launch." _

"Do they have any enemies we could target?" Rose asked.

"_Too many to mention," _Carlisle sighed. _"Both within the medical field and outside of it." _

"Including one very pissed off pixie," Rose snorted.

"_They may want to thwart Whitlock's efforts by creating an new dangerous version of the virus, resistant to the new drug Whitlock Pharmaceuticals has developed." _

"Wouldn't that be taking things a little far?" I asked. "I mean....it could just be me but killing hundreds of people just to piss of the competition seems a bit drastic."

"_Unfortunately not everyone in the medical world is as level headed as you are,_" Carlisle replied, his tone sounding very serious and almost strained.

"You can say that again," Alice huffed.

"I guess that means we'll be keeping our eye open for mad doctors tonight," Rose said, cutting Alice off.

"_Then nothing remains than to wish you good luck and good hunting,_" Carlisle concluded before hanging up.

"So pixie," Emmett started, as soon as the connection was broken. "Care to explain what that was all about?"

"Whitlock," Alice spat.

"Yes......" Rose growled impatiently.

"That sick fuck of a doctor who used me as his little lab rat was called Whitlock," Alice snarled.

"But I thought he died in the explosion?" I asked. Alice had never told us much about what happened to her in the past but we knew of the Asylum and the fire that had put an end to her ordeal.

"He had a son," she barked.

"And you think it's this guy?" Rose asked.

"This is the guy," Emmett interrupted, a picture of a handsome young man flashing onto the screen.

"He's hot!" Rose blurted out, much to the displeasure of both Emmett and Alice.

"He's scum," the pixie spat. Emmett nodding furiously with her.

"I have to agree with the bombshell here," I snorted. The guy had nothing on Edward but I had to admit he wasn't exactly ill favored in the looks department.

From what I could see he appeared to be tall and lean, his honey colored hair slightly long and curly, giving him a kind of bohemian air.

"Jasper Whitlock, born December 21 1974 in Midland Texas to Donald and Caroline Whitlock," Emmett announced, skimming though the information we had on the guy. "Started his own pharmaceutical business straight out of Harvard Medical School using the money from his inheritance to set up shop. Has distanced himself from his dad's undertakings on several occasions and even set up a fund to support victims of medical malpractice." Emmett looked up from the screen. "He doesn't really look like such a bad guy to me."

"He's scum," Alice growled again, like she was trying to convince herself more than she was trying to convince us.

"Yeah, but he's the kind of scum we're supposed to be protecting," Rose quipped.

"I'm not going to take a bullet for that piece of slime," Alice challenged, crossing her arms in front of her.

"Come on Ally," I said, pulling her into a hug, "You know that once you get in a pretty little dress and march into that venue none of the shit that happened to you before will matter right? He's just another client we're protecting." I realized I wasn't nearly as good as Alice in giving pep talks but at least I was trying.

"Thanks Bella," she said, her anger giving way to a sad little pout. "perhaps if I could do a little makeover I will start feeling better?"

"Sure," I said, trying to make my voice sound nice and comforting though inside I was hurling abuse at my little friend. There was nothing wrong with her. She was just being her evil little self and tricking me into a makeover.

Tricksy little Hobbit.

--

I like this one," I said, grabbing a relatively simple gown made of the most beautiful emerald satin I had ever seen. It reminded me of someone.

Someone I might even see tonight.

We were back in Alice's room, deciding what we were going to wear to the hospital charity function with both Rose and Alice looking at me like I had grown a third boob or something.

"What?" I grinned, knowing full well what it was they were staring at.

"You're dropping your signature color?" Alice asked – well, almost yelled – as soon as she had found her voice again. "Whatever happened to 'black goes with all my moods'?"

"I wanted to try something new," I shrugged, trying to remain casual about it. I didn't know what all the fuss was about. It wasn't like I was planning to walk into the event in worn down jeans, a flannel shirt and a pair of Chucks.

The dress I was currently holding in my hand was beautiful and very fitting for the occasion. It was sexy, leaving my back almost bare, and interesting without being too in your face. The flowy shirt of the dress also allowed you to walk, not an unimportant in my line of employment.

"Yeah, right," Rose snorted. "This has nothing to do with a certain green eyes medical examiner you're hoping to meet tonight?"

"Don't start acting like that with me Rosalie Lillian Hale!" I scolded. "I'm not the only one who matched their outfit to a pair of eyes!" The strapless tight fitting dress Rose wore was a brilliant violet color, matching her eyes perfectly. Emmett was going to have a heart attack when he saw her.

"So what's the game plan for tonight?" I asked, as we put the finishing touches to our outfits. I knew we were supposed to mingle and see if we could spot anything out of the ordinary but that was a pretty difficult task when you didn't know what exactly you were looking for.

"Bella," I could hear by the tone of her voice 'tactician Alice' had taken over, "you are going in with Rose and Emmett." I nodded. "Once you're inside the three of you will start to mingle. Rose, you will stay with Emmett to keep him from screwing up....."

"Hey!" Rose yelled offended. "My baby is perfectly able to handle himself in any situation!"

"Of course he is," Alice soothed, rolling her eyes, "but he doesn't exactly have that much experience with this kind of thing."

"I'm going in on my own?" I asked.

Alice nodded. "We will both circle the room as Rose and Emmett chat. Try to soak up as much of the conversation around you. You never know what you're going to hear."

--

"So why are we not going in all at once?" Emmett asked as he fidgeted with his tie.

"A man walking into a party with a lovely lady on each of his arms is a player," Alice explained. "A man walking in with a harem of three women is a liar with a poor libido."

"Right," Emmett smirked as Rose and I each grabbed one of his arms.

"Don't worry boss," I whispered. "You'll do great."

Rose whispered something in his ear right before we entered the room which made Emmett stand up straight and grin like he had just won the lottery.

Probably not something I wanted to hear.

As soon as we stepped into the main auditorium of the hospital, elegantly decorated for the occasion, people started to stare at us which Emmett appeared to be loving just about as much as I hated it. It was like he grew an extra few inches in height, just by soaking up all the attention.

"Okay lovebirds," I chuckled as I let go of Emmett's arm, "time to get this show on the road."

"Do you remember the safe word?" Rose whispered so that I could only hear her through my ear piece. We often used safe words on occasions such as these, when we could easily get separated. Saying it meant you were in dire trouble and in need of saving.

"Tinkerbell," I giggled.

"Will the two of you just shot the fuck up?" Alice growled.

It had been Emmett who had come up with the safe word this time, much to Alice's disgust. He had stood firm about his choice only being inspired by Paris Hilton's dog but it wasn't like we didn't know how much the little pixie hated that particular nickname (partially because of Paris Hilton's dog).

"Just checking to see if everyone remembered," Emmett sang. "You know....safety comes first."

"Screw you Bosley," Alice huffed.

"I do believe Rose will take care of that," I chuckled as I moved through the crowd.

"She most certainly will," Rose laughed.

I kept moving until I reached a little platform somewhere to the back of the venue. This find allowed me to survey the room without attracting too much attention to myself.

Perfect.

I recognized the man standing in the middle of the room as Jasper Whitlock. He was even more charming in real life than he had been in the picture, his honey colored hair still slightly unruly, adding some casualness to his otherwise gentlemanly aloof posture.

I didn't recognize his date. She must have been some kind of girlfriend or casual lay because the way she molded herself to his side left me in no doubt of the fact that they had sex and – if she had any say in it – were going to have plenty more of that later.

She was beautiful though, in a sexy Salma Hayek kind of way. Her body seemed to be made of curves and smooth bends without ever seeming overweight. She was just....feminine.

She dressed like Salma Hayek too.

Damn! It looked like her boobs could pop out of the strapless dress she was wearing any minute.

Whitlock seemed to be too wrapped up in conversation with a guy I could only see from the back to notice them though. I almost felt sorry for the woman and her boobs. Here they were, trying so hard to get his attention and all he could do was talk shop.

The man he was talking to turned around and I had to stop myself from ogling him. He was tall, like Whitlock, but older, more elegant and definitely more in his element in a room filled with gold diggers.

He carried himself in a way I though had gone extinct the day Laurence Olivier died. He looked almost like he was from another world with his handsome features and perfectly tamed blond hair. He was every Gablesque fantasy come true.

"Bella, quit ogling the hot doctor and get back to work," Alice scoffed.

"How do you know he's a doctor?"

"I've seen him around," Alice snapped. "Pay attention."

"Yes sir," I chuckled, resisting the urge to salute.

I went back to surveying the room, trying to look for something that was out of the ordinary though nothing strange seemed to be happening here and I soon found myself bored out of my skull. I was just getting ready to leave my hideout when I sensed someone standing behind me. Before I could turn to take a look the person – whoever it was- cleared his throat.

"We have to stop meeting like this." I would recognize that deep melodic voice, laced with just a hint of sarcasm, anywhere.

Edward.

"Then how do you suggest we meet?" I purred without taking my eyes off the scene in front of me. I could feel him standing right behind me, so close that if I even leaned back slightly our bodies would be touching.

"I don't know," he chuckled, his breath tickling my shoulder. "Perhaps we could go on a date some day?"

"Wouldn't that be boring though?" I quipped.

"I know I'm not as exciting as a criminal informant to go out with but believe me," I could feel his lips hovering over the skin of my neck as he continued, "I have other ways of entertaining you."

For a moment I was too dazzled to form a coherent thought. Let alone a reply.

Then it hit me.

He knew about Jacob and my date with him?

How?

"What?" I turned around completely stunned. The sight of the most beautiful man in the world standing in front of me wearing a tuxedo doing nothing to get me out of my temporary stupor.

In fact....I had the feeling it reduced me to mush.

"I know what you are," he spoke, flashing me that crooked little smile that always managed to turn my brain to mush.

"Do you?" I quipped, trying to look more amused than panicked and flustered. "And what, may I ask, is that?"

"You're an angel," he stated.

For a moment I let blind panic wash over me. I heard both Rose and Alice yell things in my ear but their voices couldn't reach over the whooshing sounds of my mind spinning into overdrive.

Fortunately it only took a few seconds for me to get back in control.

"You know....." I said, trying to magically conjure up a devious smile, "flattery won't get you in my pants."

"I wasn't even trying that.....yet," he chuckled.

Wait.

Yet?

"What?"

"You're one of Carlisle's Angels," he added.

"What? How did you find out?"

"I followed you."

"You were the guy in the silver car weren't you!" I yelled, a little too loud. "I should have known it was you!" If I hadn't been so preoccupied with this guy's green eyes I would have had the space in my brain to think about this and investigate it further. "Wait.....why were you following me anyway?"

"I feel very......protective of you," he started, confusing me even more. "When I saw you with those criminals at the club I had to make sure you were safe."

"So now you know why I broke into your precious morgue," I shrugged, changing the subject. I didn't want to discuss my dealings with The Pack right now. I had endangered our operation more than enough as it was.

"My morgue?" he asked, laughing incredulously as he dragged his fingers through his hair.

"Yeah," I shrugged. "I mean, I know you don't own the place or anything but if you work there for eight or so hours a day it does start to feel like home after a while."

"I don't work there," he said, smirking like I had just said something wildly amusing.

"You don't?" If he didn't work there then what the hell was he doing at a cold room?

"You've showed me yours, so I might as well show you mine," he chuckled, reaching into his pocket. "I'm a federal agent."

My mouth was open so far you could probably drive a truck into it.

Morgue Guy wasn't morgue guy. He was Special Agent Guy.

Special agent Edward Antony Masen, according to his badge.

Damn! Why didn't I think of that before?

"You are investigating the Crowley case?" I asked, studying his badge.

"Yep," he admitted. "You too?"

"How did you guess?" I asked.

"You know......once you figure out Cullen Investigations isn't just some regular detective agency it's pretty easy to find out the truth about you guys," he adds as if it is the most normal thing in the world. "You might want to do something about that."

"I will pass it on to Carlisle," I muttered, shifting from one leg to another.

"What is the deal with Carlisle Cullen anyway?" he asks, his green eyes scrutinizing my face. "I've used every resource the FBI has but I still couldn't find anything on him."

"What can I say," I snort. "The guy likes his privacy."

"So I assume the short firecracker and the blond bombshell are here as well?"

"Yep," I grinned, trying to block out Alice's shrieks. "And just for your information......I wouldn't be calling Alice a firecracker. Not if you value your life."

"Noted," he smiles back. "So you have a way of keeping in touch with them during your operations?"

"Molar microphones and in-ear receivers," I admitted, winking at him.

"I never noticed, he mused, looking at my ears.

"You're not supposed to, silly!" I laughed, swatting his shoulder.

"I should have," he quipped. "I'm an agent for crying out loud! I'm supposed to notice those kind of things!"

This brought us back to the original subject. "So what are you going to do now that you know?" I asked. "I mean.....we're pretty much investigating the same thing I guess, or we wouldn't be here at the same time......."

"I don't know," he admitted. "I know I should probably arrest you for interfering in a criminal investigation but.......I don't know."

"We could always join forces....." I mused, knowing full well how ridiculous that idea was.

Before we had the chance to negotiate a joint operation however, a high shriek coming from Alice interrupted us.

"_What the fuck is he doing here?" _I could here Alice mutter in my ear.

"What is it Alice?" I asked as Edward looked at me questioningly.

"_Old man Whitlock's deranged sidekick is here!"_ Alice shrieked.

"What?" I half yelled.

"_I saw him try to approach Whitlock junior just now but when he saw me he did a one eighty and ran. He's heading straight for you Bella!" _

I looked around me in search of someone trying to wade through the masses. "What does he look like?"

"_White Caucasian male, dirty blond hair tied behind his head in a ponytail, black suit, bow tie, at eleven o clock,"_ Alice rattled off.

"Got him," I growled as I spotted a man fitting the description move towards an exit close by.

"What are you doing?" Edward demanded, grabbing my arm as I tried to follow the guy.

"I have a job to do," I explained, dragging him along with me as he still held on to my arm. "That man you see there," I pointed at the man in question, "may be wrapped up in all of this somehow. I'm going to find out of he is."

"You can't just run after him Bella!" Edward yelled over the music."He could be armed. You could end up getting hurt!"

"It's what I do," I spat back. "Either you come with me or you stay behind but I'm going after him." I pried his hand away from my arm. "Are you in?"

* * *

_**What do you think? Will Edward be game?**_

**_I hope me being able to update means FF is working again. I don't know about you but I was in serious withdrawal for the last couple of days. If you areb unable to review here or if you want to speculate abot the plot or just chat....I've created a topic for this stories at the 'crossover' section at twilighted(dot)net. Pictures of Edward in a tux (for those who missed the Academy Awards or just want to drool over the hotness) and Bella's dress can be found there as well. Feel free to visit. I promise I wont bite (at least....not unless you want me to)._**


	14. Black holes and revelations

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

* * *

**Black holes and revelations**

_**(Edward Masen)**_

"Are you in?" she asked, dragging me slowly towards the far end of the room.

Was I?

"So you're just going to chase after him?" I asked as she opened the door and stepped into the corridor.

"Of course I am," she spat back as if I had just asked something insanely stupid.

"What if he's not involved?" I retorted. "You're going to scare the shit out of the poor guy, not to mention the fact that just stalking someone because you don't like the look on his face is illegal and could probably screw up a court case if indeed the guy is guilty."

"I'm here to prevent a crime from being committed," she growled. "Not to play by the fucking rules. If you don't like it just stay behind and go read a fucking law book or something."

The gloves were definitely off today but somehow this feisty, almost hostile side of her only made me want her more. It showed me she was strong and independent, not some clingy nightmare like Tanya had been.

She didn't wait for me to reply but started walking after the guy at a speed that was just one notch away from running.

She looked gorgeous, her green dress swaying around her as she walked. I don't know if she realized just how enchanting she looked in that dress. The smooth skin of her back, left almost completely bare by the dress she wore, was almost hypnotizing me. Calling me to her like a siren on a rock. It was like she was my own personal angel, send from heaven to unlock a whole array of feelings I had never felt before.

An angel.

How true that statement was.

Of course her being one of Carlisle's angels – whoever Carlisle may be – had the potential to screw up my investigation. She had flat out admitted to me that they didn't play by the rules which made following her a precarious action.

It could ruin any chance we had of ever getting the son of a bitch behind bars.

But it could also help us find him.

In the end the possibility of preventing a serious crime from being committed outweighed legal technicalities. We had to catch this bastard before the virus got out in the open. Plus....I had to prevent Bella from doing something stupid. Like getting herself killed.

I hadn't expected to see her tonight. In fact....I had hoped that spending the night doing a reconnaissance operation at the hospital would take my mind off her.

I hadn't been able to stop thinking about her at all since I left her apartment. The way she had looked, the way she had said – no moaned – my name in her sleep. The completely screwed up bastard I was for breaking into the girl's apartment.

Shame and guilt had kept me from accessing the data from the bugs I had planted at her apartment. How could I have been so stupid in the first place? If I was caught not only would it screw up my career, it would also mess up every chance I had of being with Bella.

"I didn't think you had it in you," she smiled as I caught up with her.

"What," I retorted. "Are you questioning my dedication to the job?"

"No," she chuckled, turning her face to me for the slightest hint of a moment. "It's just that I though that FBI agents were completely unable to think on their own."

She seemed different than she had at the club. More confident and definitely snarkier.

I liked it.

It showed she had some spark in her as well as the most beautiful eyes I had ever seen and a body that would have even Elton John forgetting he didn't swing that way.

"So you're just going to jump in head first and see where it gets you?" I asked as we spotted the guy a little further down the corridor.

"No silly," she laughed as if I had just said the stupidest thing possible. "We do actually have a plan."

"You do?'

"What, do you think I'm just ignoring my fellow angels?" she said incredulously. "We always work together."

"And what do they say now?" I could tell by the way her eyes flickered and her face turned all concentrated she was conversing with her colleagues.

"They are saying you're a pompous ass for assuming we're just a bunch of frigging amateurs," she snickered. "And they say we're good to follow him as long as we don't do anything rash."

"That's your plan?" I snorted. I knew most private investigated didn't follow guidelines the way we did at the Bureau but this was insane.

"Just because Carlisle didn't shove a rulebook up my ass the moment I joined his office doesn't mean I'm a complete amateur," she huffed indignantly.

Apparently she was a bit touchy about comments on her skills.

"I'm sorry if I offended you," I apologized. "And guidelines are actually kind of helpful. They prevent people from getting hurt."

"And turn people into complete robots," she added with a sarcastic chuckle. It was clear she thought as highly of federal agents as I did of private investigators.

We returned our attention to the guy in front of us, silently following him through the building as he moved up a couple of flights of stairs to one of the top floors of the hospital before marching down another corridor.

The fact that I was still dressed in my tux and Bella in her elegant green gown started to earn us some strange looks from the hospital staff but strangely enough no one approached us. I made a mental note of mentioning this to hospital officials I had a meeting with tomorrow.

The guy suddenly stopped in front of a door and turned to look straight at us.

"Damn," Bella muttered under her breath and before I could even respond she had thrown me against the wall with a force that – even though I knew she had probably undergone some intensive training – completely surprised me. Before I knew it her lips crashed to mine.

"Just play along," she whispered against my lips.

Who was I to disagree with that?

My body reacted almost instinctively. My arms, eager to feel her again, wrapped around her tiny body as I responded to the kiss with all my might.

"Is he gone?" she panted as we broke for air.

What?

Oh. Yes. The guy we were following.

I scanned the corridor, noticing the guy had indeed disappeared.

"I don't see him," I offered, knowing full well that – since I had been the one pressed up against the wall – I should have been the one who kept their eyes open to pay attention to what the guy was doing.

Easier said than done.

"He was standing in front of that door," Bella said, walking toward the door she had pointed out.

"It's locked," she growled after a couple of fruitless attempts to open it.

"Do we force the lock?" I asked. It would draw attention to us and apart from that, there was no way you could stealthily kick in a door.

"What's the motto of the Boy Scouts?" she grinned.

"Be prepared?" I answered, wondering what the hell the Boy Scouts had to do with a secret opp at a hospital.

"Exactly,"she said, rifling through her purse in search of a little flask filled with some unidentified green liquid and poured it on the lock. The stuff started hissing as soon as it made contact with the iron of the lock and much to my surprise the whole thing turned to liquid and gave way at just the slightest push.

"What the hell is that stuff?" I asked as I looked at the now liquid lock dripping to the ground.

"I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you," she chuckled.

"If I wanted to listen to easy spy cliché's all night I would have brought my partner along," I retorted. "And by the way....aren't girls supposed to carry around makeup and tampons in their purse?"

"You're lucky I'm not one of those girls," she snorted as she pushed the door open further. "It would have been damn hard opening that door with a tampon."

I guess she was right.

"Do you know where we are?" I asked as we entered a dark and – by the looks of it – abandoned corridor.

"You're Morgue Guy," she chuckled. "You're the one who's supposed to know all this shit."

"Morgue Guy?"

"Oh yeah," she chuckled. "I forgot you didn't know about that. It's a nickname Rose came up with."

"Right."

"And no, I don't know where we are," she said. "It must be one of the parts of the old hospital. The one that was here before they remodeled and built the new entrance. Do you see the guy?"

"No I don't," I replied, scanning the dark corridor. "But I think that's where he went."It wasn't hard to track the single set of footprints on the dusty floor. The line lead straight ahead, into the darkness making me believe that whoever these prints belonged to knew what they were doing or at least where they were going.

We ran through the corridor, eager to catch up with the guy while still trying to make as little noise as we could. Unfortunately running in heels and an expensive looking dress appeared to be even more difficult than it looked and it wasn't long before Bella fell behind.

"Are you alright?" I said, slowing down my pace.

"Damn fucking clothes," she growled as she tripped again. "The dress is too long. Here, hold this." She handed me her purse as she took of her shoes and threw them to the side.

"Alice is going to kill me for this," she chuckled as she grabbed hold of the hem of her dress and ripped the fabric, creating a slit all the way up to her thighs.

I couldn't stop a mangled little cry from escaping my lips at the sight of her perfect creamy white thighs.

"If you're done ogling me why don't we start running after the bad guy?" she mocked, as she started to speed walk after the guy we were following, his footsteps sounding further and further away as he progressed through the pitch dark corridor.

Fortunately the darkness made it impossible for me to stare at the way the smooth green silk of her dress flowed around her slender legs, almost caressing the skin as she moved. I would have made a complete and utter fool of myself by walking into a door or drooling on my shoes if it hadn't.

Following a guy in daylight may have been hard, following a guy in the dark was even harder. We had no idea of where we were going or what obstacles would be in our way and since we wanted to avoid being detected that cause kind of a problem.

Then there were the sparse windows that let in the moonlight from outside. Every time we had to cross one of those we had to take extra care. If the guy was looking over his shoulder it would have been easy to spot us as we stepped into the light.

We were making some good progress though, in spite of all the obstacles. I could hear we were getting closer, the sound of his footsteps was getting closer every second.

"Do you think he heard us?" Bella whispered as the footsteps suddenly stopped.

"I don't know," I admitted. We were in a particularly dark part of the corridor and it was hard to even see the floor in front of my own two feet, let alone spot someone who was a couple feet away from us.

"Well, there's only one way to find out," Bella whispered as she started walking ahead again.

For a couple of moments all that we could hear was the sound of our own breathing and the faint thud of our footsteps was we progressed through the corridor, the world around us getting lighter again every step we took.

The corridor seemed to be leading into a large room with big windows somewhere ahead of us and the light streaming from those windows allowed us to clearly see what was ahead of us for the first time since we had entered this part of the hospital.

Bella was the first one to reach the room at the end of the corridor and by the looks of it she didn't intend to waste any time in finding out what was behind it.

"Wait," I hissed. "Let me go in first."

"And let you have all the glory?" she smirked. "I think not Morgue Guy."

I peeked into the room to see that it was every guerrilla warrior's wet dream come true. The place was littered with cabinets and other places to hide behind, apart from the light making it almost impossible to come into the room undetected. Going in there would be suicide.

"We don't know if he's out there," I growled. Did she have any regard for her own life? Or had that gone out of the window long ago when she started working for that Carlisle guy? "Let's check to see if the room is secure first."

"Yeah and by the time we're finished the guy will be miles away," she snorted, rolling her eyes. "We'll do this my way."

She stalked into the room, keeping close to a trail of small iron cabinets that had been pushed aside as if someone had been in a hurry to get the out of the way.

"Bella," I hissed, trying to make her turn around.

She acted like she didn't hear me, taking slow, cautious steps that took her further away from me every second I waited.

I took a deep breath as I stepped into the door way. As much as my head was screaming at me that it was suicide walking into that room, my heart wouldn't listen to it.

I had to protect Bella.

Even if it killed me.

Almost the moment I stepped into the light I saw something shift in the doorway on the opposite end of the room. As he took one small step forward into the room I immediately recognized the guy we were following, his thin form barely standing out against the darkness of the room behind him.

He had chosen the perfect place to hide. The darkness of the room shielding him from our sight and providing the perfect place to watch us as we entered his death trap.

"BELLA LOOK OUT!" I yelled as I watched the guy reach into the inside of his jacket. "He's got a gun!"

So many things happened at once. As I jumped backwards and retreated behind the door frame I saw Bella duck behind the cabinets over to her right side at the same time the first bullets started flying around our heads.

"Please let her be safe," I mutter as I reached for my own gun, thankful I decided to bring it with me.

I noticed the man is starting to walk slowly towards the place where Bella is hidden, no doubt intending to finish her off.

As if I would let that happen.

If that motherfucking son of a bitch harmed one hair on my Bella's head he'll be sorry he was ever born.

Before he could come anywhere near my girl I stepped into the door opening and started firing, retreating behind the wall almost instantly so he couldn't get a good aim at me.

"Son of a bitch!" I heard him yell.

Good. I got him.

Apparently not good enough.

As soon as I take a cautious peek at the room ahead another round of bullets is fired at the door. Some landed in the wall behind me, the brickwork shaking with the force of their impact. Others flew past me into the open room.

This was bound to attract the attention of the hospital staff. They are bound to close off this section and call the cops. There is no way this guy could escape now.

Or so I hoped.

"TINKERBELL!" I can hear Bella shout from behind her hide-out..

I let out a huge relieved breath. She survived and was still able to speak.

"TINKERBELL!" she screamed again. It was only then that I registered what she was saying.

What the hell?

"TINKERBELL! TINKERBELL! TINKERBELL!"

Just then the shooting stopped and we heard footsteps retreating quickly down what – from the appearance of it – sounded to be a staircase.

"Bella, are you okay?" I yelled, running over to where she was hidden.

"I was able to duck behind this cabinet right on time," she panted, leaping to her feet again. "Are you?"

"I'm fine," I shrug. "What was all the yelling about?"

"What? Did you think I was getting shell shocked or something?" she chuckled. "It's our safe word. If everything goes according to plan Alice, Rose and Emmett are heading our way as we speak."

"So do we wait for them?" I asked as I heard the footsteps of the bastard who had just attempted to shoot my Bella fade.

"Of course not," she replied, almost offended. "I'm not letting this jackass get away. Alice and Rosalie will refrain from yelling in my ear for now and meet us downstairs." That last bit was obviously meant for her two colleagues who must have been worried sick if they heard all of this.

"Let's go then," I chuckled as Bella cringed, no doubt because her friends were still yelling at her.

"I swear they are giving me a migraine," she huffed, rubbing her temple with one hand as I used the other one to lead her into the darkness.

The room was indeed a stairwell, faintly illuminated at some spots by tiny windows in the outer wall. At least the light would make our descend down the spiral staircase a bit easier, though the whole setup had me bothered. All the shooter would have to do was wait in a darkness a few stories below and shoot as us as we climbed down above him.

"Do you have enough rounds?" Bella asked as she lingered on the top step.

"What's the boy scouts motto?" I smirked back. I always took care I was well prepared before stepping into a possibly dangerous situation.

"Too bad you didn't bring a second gun," she grumbled as she watched me change the magazine in my gun.

"You should have brought your own gun," I snorted. Not that I liked the thought of her holding a gun but if you were going after criminals you'd better be able to defend yourself.

"We don't use guns," she growled, making me think I had hit a sore spot. "At least not if there are 'other options'. Carlisle thinks having a gun makes you take more risks."

"Carlisle is a smart man," I nodded. "I like him, though I don't like him sending you into a dangerous situation armed with nothing but a smile."

"Then give me the fucking gun," she spat.

"Ain't gonna happen sweetheart," I chuckled, loving the fact that she got so worked up about her job. "You stay here and wait for the rest of your team while I track this jackass down," I said as I threw the door open and checked to see if the guy was still within sight.

"Excuse me?" she growled as she marched into the stairwell. "Who the fuck do you think I am? Daisy fucking Duke? I'm not staying behind."

"You haven't got a weapon," I chuckled. At least is she stayed behind she would be safe.

"Do too," she spat, yanking the split of her dress open to reveal a knife strapped to the thigh. She waved it in front of my face a few times before she started to sprint down the first flight of stairs.

"And what good do you think that little thing will do against a gun?" I hissed after her as I started my own descent into the dark stairwell.

"I could always throw it at his head." A tiny window in the stairwell illuminated her face for the tiniest hint of a second and I could see a snide little smile flash over her face.

"And then what?" I whispered back as we heard the footsteps of the guy we were following a few floors below.

"Thanks for the unyielding trust in my capabilities asshole," she snorted. "What makes you think I'd miss?"

"Sor-ry," I huffed.

"What did you expect?" she snarled under her breath. "First you order me around like I'm some kind of innocent damsel in distress and now you expect me to be all nice and cuddly?"

"You were alright being nice and cuddly when you kissed me earlier," I huffed, thinking how I liked her better when I still thought she was a bad girl.

"That was out of necessity," she said, though her voice wasn't very convincing. "And before you turned into a total guy and started bossing me around."

"Shut up and keep closer to the wall," I sighed. We were almost halfway down the stairwell and the footsteps had stopped again. It could mean only two things. Either the bastard was waiting for us somewhere or he had cleared out of the building.

"This conversation is far from over," she hissed, but moved closer to the wall anyway.

I was just starting to think we were going to make it out of here alive when I heard the all too familiar sound of a pistol being cocked before the whole stairwell started to shake with the thunder of shots being fired.

"GET DOWN!" I yelled, firing my own rounds in the direction of where the shots came from.

"Edward get back here!" I could faintly hear Bella yell over the noise.

Right.

As if I would let this sucker walk out of the building. There was no doubt about the fact that he started shooting as a decoy so that he could slip out of the staircase and into the night.

I wasn't going to let that happen.

"I've got an idea," I jumped a little as I heard Bella right behind me. "Cover me."

"What the hell are you doing?" I yelled as I watched her crouch down the stairs keeping as close to the wall as she could. "Do you have a death wish or something?"

She replied by rolling her eyes at me as she continued to move down slowly.

This was madness.

Even if she managed to get down the stairs there was always the question of what she would do once she found herself face to face with a psycho gunman without the proper arms to do something.

I quickly changes the magazine in my weapon again before I followed her down the stirs. At least if we went down together we would have a gun to kill him.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Bella hissed as soon as she saw what I was doing.

"I'm trying to stop you from getting yourself killed!" I spat back.

"I would have taken the guy out before he even knew what hit him," she growled.

"What were you going to do?" I snorted. "Stun him by flashing your boobs?"

"Fuck you Edward," she hissed, trying to slap me. If we weren't in the middle of a firefight I would have found all of this strangely arousing. Hell, it was more than arousing even right in the middle of a firefight.

There really must be something wrong with me.

The gentleman my mother raised would never have been attracted to a tomboy harpy with the mouth of a dockworker.

And he sure as hell wouldn't be thinking about seducing her in the middle of pursuing an armed criminal.

The movement of Bella trying to kill me triggered another round of shots coming from below. I guess whoever was down there must have realized were we coming after him. At least with Bella so close to me it was easy to make sure she was safe. I fired a few rounds while forming my plan to get Bella safe.

In the end I just went for simplicity. I wrapped my arms around her to form a protective cage and rolled us over so that we were flush against the wall, her body behind mine.

I noticed the shooting from downstairs stopped almost immediately stopped after I had stopped returning fire.

"Get off me you idiot!" Bella hissed as we heard footsteps moving fast. "He's getting away!"

"Thank you for saving my life yet again Edward," I yelled after her, mimicking her voice, as she sped down the stairs.

At the bottom of the staircase a door was standing wide open. Walking through it I saw Bella, standing in the middle of some kind of lawn, squinting at a blur fading in the distance at great speed. He must have had a car waiting for him somewhere around here.

"Look at what you did!" she shrieked as we dusted ourselves off. "You let the asshole get away!"

"I did?" What was it with women always passing the buck to someone else. "If I remember it right you were the one yelling at me like some psycho banshee. If you would have kept your mouth shut we wouldn't have gotten shot at again."

"If you wouldn't have questioned my capabilities I wouldn't have had to yell at you!" she spat back.

"If you wouldn't have gone and almost gotten yourself killed I wouldn't have had to worry about your wellbeing!"

"Wait!" she yelled, holding up one hand to silence me as her face turned from furious to serious."You worry about my wellbeing?

"Yeah, I do." Did she really think I didn't care about her? That I would have just left her there at the mercy of that creep? I mean, even if I didn't love her as much as I did, I still wouldn't have done that.

Again with the love....

What was wrong with me?

"Huh," she mused, looking at her feet as they shifted nervously on the lawn.

"What? Like that's weird?"

"No.......I-I....It's just....." She still wouldn't look at me and the fact that I had no clue whatsoever of her feelings for me made me feel more frustrated than I thought I had ever felt in my life.

"I like you a lot Bella," I blurted out. "I would never let something bad happed to you."

"You.....you like me?" she stammered.

"Is that so hard to believe?" I chuckled.

"If you could see the guys I usually attract you would be surprised," she snorted, using her usual snark to deflect the attention from what she was really saying.

"You deserve nothing shy of prince charming Bella," I chuckled, placing a light kiss on her forehead. "Even if you're a psycho bitch with a death wish."

"And you consider yourself prince charming?" she retorted with a coy smile, her hand coming to rest on my cheek.

"I am nothing but another one of those flawed bastards who aren't even worthy of kissing your feet," I smiled. "I'm just more arrogant than the rest of them."

"I like you too Edward," she said in a voice that barely registered over a whisper. "I like you a whole lot." Her thumb brushed over my cheek and for a moment it was almost as if my soul was coming home.

Every time Bella and I touched it was like that.

There was electricity and lust but there was also something that ran much deeper. Something that couldn't be denied any longer.

I loved this woman.

She was my other half.

Even if she swore like a dockworker and took the most ridiculous risks.

I still loved her.

We would have to talk about those risks though because I don't think I would ever get a moment's peace if I had to think about Bella running after armed gunmen with only a Swiss Army knife to defend herself.

But we would work it out.

"And so the federal agent fell for the private detective," I muttered into her hair, laughing at just how strange that concept really was.

"She must be mad," Bella laughed with me, "falling for one of those arrogant dogooders from the Bureau."

"She?" I quipped. "What about him? He's a total masochist for letting one of those private sector cowboys mess up his career!"

"Edward?" she said, after we had caught our breath again.

"Yes, my angel?"

"You can kiss me now."

"My pleasure," I chuckled, before leaning in slowly and brushing my lips against hers.

If touching Bella felt like coming home, kissing her felt like Christmas morning. It was the best feeling in the wold, her soft, plump lips moving against mine. I remembered those few day ago when we were dancing and I had imagined what she would taste like. The real thing didn't compare to any of the thing I had come up with. It was so much better. She tasted like sweetness and woman and love.

This kiss was completely different from that first kiss we had shared, moments away in a hospital corridor. That kiss had been fast and furious, over before I had reeled from the shock. This one was sweet and slow and made me almost desperate for more.

She sighed contently against my lips as I wrapped my arms around her even tighter, my tongue moving over her bottom lip, asking permission to deepen the kiss. I fought to keep in control of my raging hormones and keep the kiss sweet and gentle as I caressed her tongue with mine, ignoring my dick screaming at me to push her up against a tree and ravage her on the spot.

All too soon we were interrupted by the sound of someone scraping their throat behind us.

I growled slightly as I turned around to look at the person who had had the audacity to disrupt this moment.

Right.

Her friends.

I should have remembered they were coming.

"If the two of you are done making out then perhaps could someone explain to us what happened?" a huge guy was standing at the edge of the lawn, grinning like a mad hatter.

"He fired at us. We fired at them. He got away. The end," Bella growled seeming as displeased with the interruption as I was.

Good.

"That's not what it sounded like," the small one – was it Alice? - growled. She pricked Bella in her chest with her finger as she stood in front of her fuming. She was actually quite scary for someone so small. "Did you listen to anything Carlisle has been saying about not taking risks? Didn't you hear us screaming at you not to enter that damned hospital wing?"

I was beginning to like this Carlisle person more and more, even though it was still frustrating that I hadn't been able to find any information on the guy.

"And don't stand there looking so smug mister," she spat, moving her attention to me. "You didn't do anything to stop her from walking headfirst into the line of fire!"

For a moment I was scared she was going to slap me.

"I tried....." I managed to choke out.

"Try harder next time," she growled before stepping back.

"I think you just got Alice Brandon's seal of approval," Bella whispered, giving me a light kiss on the cheek as she followed the scary pixie.

"And by the way Ms Brandon," she sang. "I think you have some explaining of your won to do."

"What?" Alice asked, turning around again.

"I mean, I for one sure as hell would like to know who it was that almost shot me," Bella said sarcastically.

It was as if Alice deflated on the spot. "I guess I do owe you guys an explanation," she sighed, looking down at her feet.

"What is it Alice?" the other two girls were by her side in less than a second.

I looked at the big guy to see if he knew what was going on but he just shrugged to signal he didn't knew either and returned his gaze to the girls who were still huddled together.

"Talk to us Ally," the statuesque blond pleaded.

"Not here," Alice's voice sounded as if she was on the verge of tears. "Would it be okay if we went to the office first?"

"Sure pixie," the big guy boomed. "Just wait here and I'll get the car."

"You might as well tag along, Morgue Guy," Alice said, turning to me. "This is something that goes beyond the angels."

"Is it okay of my partner joins us too," I asked cautiously. I didn't want to overstep my boundaries but if this concerned the case then it concerned Garrett as well.

"Whatever," she shrugged, still looking defeated. "The more the merrier."

I had a sneaking suspicion this wasn't just about her and the gunman stealing candy at Wallmart when they were young.

This was going to be big, by the looks of it.

* * *

_**Yes. Bella on hot pursuit of a dangerous criminal is a lot snarkier than shy Bella on the dance floor. She is just more in her element in this chapter than she was in the club chapters. Sure, on the inside she was the nervous wreck you saw in the 'board room' at the club but that wasn't something Edward picked up on. **_

_**The next chapter will be in Alice's POV and will explain about her dealings with James. **_

_**For now, please let me know what you thought of this one. If you have any questions about the plot or the story, or if you just want to chat, feel free to join me at the twilighted boards.**_


	15. Freak on a leash

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

* * *

**Freak on a leash**

_**(Alice Brandon)**_

"I was barely five years old when I was submitted to my first exorcism," I sighed, starting my explanation right at the beginning.

I didn't like thinking about these things.

Opening the wounds that had scarred me so deeply the pain was still as strong today as it had been at the moment the wounds were inflicted.

I had kept quiet about it, storing the memories away in a distant corner of my brain.

Living in the now.

Until this night.

I knew that telling the girls about my past before all of this happened wouldn't have made any difference. The only thing it would have changed is that they would have stared treating me differently.

Like a victim.

I didn't want it, in fact....I couldn't stand even the thought of it.

All I wanted to be was a normal girl.

It was all I had ever cared about.

But now, much to my shame and mortification, my quest for normalcy had put my friends – and perhaps even all of the people in this city – in danger.

"Exorcism?" I hear Emmett ask, pulling me out of my thoughts. "I thought that was something only those creepy priests from the Middle Ages did."

"Unfortunately creepy priests weren't just a thing from the Middle Ages," I sighed. "They were very common where I grew up."

I could feel two pairs of arms wrap around me even tighter than they had been before. I needed them. I needed the support of my girls if I wanted to make it through this without falling apart.

We had come back to the office after the whole operation at the hospital had literally blown up in our faces. Bella had been right, I had to explain things. I had to give them every bit of information I had about my dealings with James Midnight but I couldn't do it on a damp lawn in front of a decrepit part of Forks General Hospital.

I needed to be in a place that felt safe. And, apart from that, I needed Carlisle's help. There were parts of the story that I didn't remember too clearly. Parts when I had been so far out of it I couldn't even tell which way was up. Carlisle had to be there to fill in the blanks and take over if it got too much for me. He was the only one who knew the full extend of my life's story.

Apart from Esme, who wasn't available right now, he was the only one who could pull me through this, even if it was just by being close. Well....metaphorically speaking.

"Would it be possible for you guys to let me speak without interruptions?' I asked shyly, looking mainly at the new guys. Cops had a way of interrupting you every five words. I knew that if I was ever going to hold it together I had to do this my way.

"If that is what makes you comfortable we will let you speak," Morgue Guy, though I guess I should call him Edward or agent Masen now, said. I was really starting to like this guy now that I had found out his profession was a little less disturbing. He looked like the perfect guy for Bella. "We might, however, have some questions for you when you're done. Will you be able to answer those?"

"I will, to the best of my ability," I replied. "There are parts in this story that are a bit....blurry though. By the end the medications I had been given had tampered with my brain to an extend that I wasn't really conscious of the world around me." I could feel Rose and Bella stiffen next to me as my words sunk in. "Carlisle will be able to answer most of those questions though....," I added. "I hope that will be enough...."

"Of course," Edward said, smiling reassuringly. "When you are ready."

"Okay," I said, taking another deep breath. "As I said......I got my first exorcism when I was five. I know now that no priest in their right mind should have agreed to do it but in the village where I grew up they thought.....differently about things like that."

"I had been different from the moment I had been born. I cried a lot and never liked to be picked up or be near other people. My mother said that I must have had a particular inclination towards evil but I think that even then I was able to see things. My parents were catholic – ultra orthodox catholics to be precise – and they saw my strange ability to predict things before they happened as a sign that some kind of demon had taken possession of me."

"It started out innocently, almost like some kind of prank between me and my little sister. We would sit in the window sill of the upstairs landing and she would point people out to me and ask me what they were going to do." I laughed, remembering those happy days. "My mother knew about it but thought it was just two little girls playing an innocent game. That was.....until it happened right under her nose."

I took a deep breath, trying to summon up the memories of how it had all started. "My mom and I were walking down the street one day and I had another one of my visions when I saw a woman on a ladder, washing the windows of her home. In my head I saw the ladder sway and the woman falling down and not rising to her feet again. When I told my mother we should help the lady before she fell she berated me for making jokes about something as serious as that. That was.....until the woman actually fell down."

I sighed, knowing that what had started that day had lead up to the day, ten years later, when I had been submitted to the care of doctor Whitlock. "Somehow my mom seemed to come to the conclusion that I had something to do with the woman falling. I think she figured some kind of evil must have taken possession of me and wielded its power to cause the accident. One day my mom just took me by the hand and dragged me off to church where our village priest performed the ritual."

"Did your head spin around like in 'The Exorcist?" Emmett asked enthusiastically.

"Shut up you idiot!" Rose yelled, using her one free hand to reach beside her and slap him up the back of his head. "Can't you see she's having a difficult enough time already?"

"I was just trying to relieve the tension," Emmett whined, rubbing the back of his head. "No need to bitch slap me!" He turned to me after that. "I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings pixie."

"No harm done you big cuddly teddy bear," I said, trying to sound as cheerful as I could as I struggled to free my hands and hug him.

Much to my surprise Emmett lifted me up like I weighed no more than a feather, walked over to the couch and sat down in between Rose and Bella, holding me in his lap.

"Is this better?"

"Much," I said, leaning back against his chest. It did make me feel much better.

Safe.

Like it was okay for me to talk because the pain wasn't going to get to me.

I looked over to see Edward and his buddy were studying the wall, trying to give us some personal space or whatever it was they thought we needed. Those FBI guys must have thought we'd gone completely mental.

"It didn't help of course," I chuckled, continuing my story.

"What?" Edwards partner asked.

"The exorcism," I chuckled, noticing the annoyed look Edwards gave his buddy. I guess he was the 'Rose' in their team and the guy, I believed he was called Garrett was the Emmett of their team.

"It didn't deter my mother though......not in the least. She just kept doing everything in her power to prevent her oldest daughter from falling in the clutches of the devil," I continued, smiling wryly as I though about it. "My mom was doing what she thought was best for me and for them."

"For them?" Rose blushed slightly as she realized she had done exactly what she had just berated Emmett for.

"When you live in a small, very religious village like the one I grew up in, having a daughter like me would turn you into a social outcast," I said, trying to keep my emotions from my voice. "She kept me at home, away from the pubic eye, as much as she could. Whenever we did go outside my mom never let me out of her sight."

"How long did this go on?" I heard Bella ask softly, her hands tightening their grip on mine.

"For as long as I lived with them," I sighed. "It did get a little better though. In time, as I grew older, I learned how to suppress my 'gift' and act normal when around other people. My parents never stopped watching me but, because I had learned how to behave, they let me out of the house more often."

"I was never allowed to go to a real school, like my sister though – that would have been too great a risk in my parents eyes – but sometimes my mom would take me with her when she went into town or to visit friends or family."

I remembered those years. They had been easier. Of course I had still gotten visions like I had before but I had learned the hard way to keep them to myself. My mom knew I was having visions – there was something about the way I behaved when I had one that tipped her off – but she never mentioned it as long as I behaved. I think she thought I was fighting my demons.....or it didn't bother her so much as long as I didn't make the rest of the family look bad.

I laughed a little when I remembered how, during those years, I had actually taken my first steps towards channeling my power towards the 'greater good'.

"What?" Rose asked.

"Nothing," I grinned. "I was laughing because I remembered how I secretly used my power to bring people together."

"What?" Emmett asked. "How?"

"Sometimes when people are really attracted to each other I can see it," I chuckled. There were actually two examples of that power sitting in the room with me at the moment but they didn't need to know that. "I can sort of see their future together from the moment they both decide they like one another."

"And you try to help them?" Rose laughed.

"Yep!" I replied. "I figured myself quite the Emma Woodhouse then."

"Emma who?" Emmett and Garrett asked in perfect unison.

"Emma Woodhouse, the main character in Jane Austen's _Emma_," Bella explained quickly before turning back to me. "Didn't your parents ever find out?"

"I had gotten pretty good at hiding things from them by then," I sighed, remembering how I had practically lived two lives for almost five years. "My mom did find out in the end though...."

"How?" Emmett interrupted.

"My mom found the diary I kept hidden underneath the floorboards in my room," I shrugged, berating myself once again for being as careless as to stash my treasure in such an obvious place.

"What did they do?" Rose demanded as Emmett tightened his grip on me, almost as if he knew this was where the story got really ugly.

"They brought me to....him." It was more difficult to keep my emotions in check at this moment. My memories of that time where almost painfully clear. I remembered everything that happened from the moment I found my mom standing in my bedroom with my diary in her hands to the moment I was first injected with the hallucinative stuff that had almost killed me as if it had happened yesterday.

I squeezed my eyes shut for a couple of moments before opening them again, pushing the pain and fear away.

"I don't know what brought my mom to bring me to Donald Whitlock after she had discovered my diary. I think she must have thought I was beyond help or something......Anyway........she drove me halfway across the country to the Lark Hill Mental Institution in Texas, run by doctor Donald Whitlock, a man who had been recommended to her by our family priest."

"And you let her?" The Rose I knew, the one who would never stop fighting for those she loved, shone through in the fierceness of her tone.

"I never knew," I said, squeezing her hand a little. "She told me we were going on a trip."

"And you believed her?"

"She was my mother," I said, my voice never reaching over a whisper. "I had no reason not to trust her. Not even after everything she had done to me. And besides.....she never knew what was going to happen to me or I don't think she would have brought me there."

"I knew doctor Whitlock was bad news the moment I saw him. The visions I had of the things he planned to do to me had me almost writhing on the ground in agony, begging my mom not to leave me with that man," I couldn't hold back a bitter smile as I thought about that moment. "Of course that only spurred my mother on in believing she was doing the right thing."

"How could a mother leave her child with such a man?" Bella whispered.

"He was quite charming when he wanted to be," I explained. "He had that same aura of relaxed professionalism his son has – as we were all able to see tonight – it was only after his visitors had left that he showed his true colors."

"The first couple of weeks went by quite pleasantly. It was nice to be in a place where I could just be who I was without being afraid someone would classify my behavior as 'abnormal'. Not even my doctors talked to me as if I was crazy. My therapy sessions were more like real conversations between a grownup and a teenage girl than a quest to seek out the normal Rachel Lee."

"Rachel Lee?" It was Edward who voiced the question that was so plain to see on everyones faces.

"Yes....." I said. "My real name isn't Alice Brandon. It is the name I gave myself after I had been discharged from the hospital. I was born Rachel Maria Lee."

"All in all life at the asylum wasn't so bad those first couple of weeks," I continued. "I even found a couple of girls there that were like me, strange but far from fruitcake material. We formed a bond and – even though sometimes they went missing for a day or two – we spend most of our times together. They would never tell me what is was that they were doing when they couldn't come to the communal area's though. Sometimes when I saw them I would catch fragments of visions of them wandering around a dark room intoxicated or in pain, but I couldn't really place those visions. They were too blurry and indistinct to be making any sense."

"Doctor Whitlock kept himself mostly absent from the day to day business at his own institution. Back then I thought it was because it was hard running such a place or that he kept himself busy with treating the more.......harrowing cases. I even began to think my mind had really been playing tricks on me that first day in his office. It was only after my third week at the institution that I found out what it was that he was doing."

I felt both my hands being squeezed almost at the same time as I prepared myself to continue my story. "As it turned out Donald Whitlock used his institution as a ways to fund and.......cover up his real passion: making medicine."

"If he liked that so much then why didn't he become a damn pharmacist?" Rose yelled angrily.

"He wanted to," I replied. "After I was released from hospital I did a little research into his character. I wanted to understand what had driven a seemingly nice man such as him to become a monster. I found out that he was expelled from Med. School, where he was studying pharmaceutics, after an incident involving his clinical methods. It could have been that even then he was up to the same tricks but since the school never pressed the matter any further we'll never know."

"One afternoon when I was in my room by myself one of the nurses came to get me for what I thought to be just another regular visit with my therapist. This time, however she brought me to the office of doctor Whitlock."

I took another deep breath before I continued. "The moment looked into his eyes I saw what it was that he was going to do to me. I screamed and yelled at the nurse to please not leave me with that man but – seeing that I was a mental patient and he was a highly accoladed doctor - she just ignored me and left."

"What did he do to you?" Emmett asked his voice strangely emotional.

"He questioned me about my visions and my life prior to my admittance to his institution for a while. I answered him to the best of my abilities because I thought that if I played along nicely he wasn't going to do anything to me. I was wrong......"

"After he had satisfied himself that there was really nothing wrong with me he took me with him to a part of the asylum I had never been before, though I had seen it in my visions of my friends. It was what he called the observation unit, though I came to call it the 'guinea pig room'."

"I think Whitlock used girls like me – girls who were perfectly healthy apart from being a bit …....eccentric - because we were a perfect clear canvas for him to test his drugs on. He would give us something to induce the symptoms his new medicine was supposed to be curing and left us to let the drugs do their work for a while. Then, when we were completely spaced out he gave us the medicine and watched us as the cure started to do its work."

"And no one found out about it?" Rose yelled angrily.

"Nope," I sighed. "He was very careful not to attract attention from the regular staff at the hospital. He never gave us anything that affected us physically, just drugs that would make you see or hear strange things or that would make you really hyper or mellow. What also helped was the fact that most of the staff at the asylum worshiped him like he were some kind of godlike genius."

"What about your parents?" Bella asked.

"They seemed to have abandoned me," I admitted. "They hardly ever visited me and even when they did it was clear to see that they'd rather be somewhere else." Thinking back on those painful visits brought tears to my eyes. "My sister was never allowed to come with them. I think they where afraid she would speak up if she saw me there or that she would get infected with my demonic disease.....I don't know. I think doctor Whitlock gave them reports on my progress though......"

"And they never found out?" Even Bella was starting to sound furious right now.

"The saw what they wanted to see," I sighed. "A mentally ill child who deserved to be in a place like that. Because they visited me so sporadically it was easy for the doctor to feed him some kind of crap story about my condition deteriorating when they visited me and I was in the guinea pig room, completely out of the loop on hallucinogens."

"That was also when I met James, the bastard you all met tonight. He was very young at the time - I don't think he was that much older than me – and prior to my first trip to the guinea pig room I had thought he just worked at the asylum as some kind of handyman."

"He was a sick son of a bitch even then," I continued. "Whereas doctor Whitlock was a monster, I could still get him. He did what he did because of some sick notion of helping people with the drugs he tested on us girls. James was just in it because he liked to see people in pain. He was always there when I was in that little glass room, drugged up to my eyeballs on some kind of crap. He was always watching me, those scary blue eyes looking at me with a sickening mixture of satisfaction and fascination."

I shuddered as I remembered him, the one person I had tried so hard to forget.

I had recognized him the moment I had seen him.

It was all in the eyes.

Those menacing steel blue eyes.

They still haunted me after all those years.

I had seen them observing me as I was writhing on the ground in the most gruesome mental pain I had ever experienced, looking at me as if like he was enjoying it.

"I don't know how long all of that went on for. I know it must have been for over a year because I had just turned fourteen when I was brought to that.......place and I was almost sixteen the day the asylum burned to the ground. Most of the time I spend there I was too far out of it to remember what day it was though.....and even when I was consciously aware of the world around me I tried to block almost everything out."

"What happened to your friends?" Bella asked.

"I went to them immediately after that first time I had been taken to the guinea pig room. I knew now that my visions of them had been all too true. They had been subjected to this for a lot longer and had managed to find a way to deal with it."

"Why didn't you do something?" Rose wanted to know. "You could have gone to the cops or something."

"We were afraid," I said. "James was always watching us. Once, when one of the other girls tried to break into the nurses station at night to call for help he found her and took her downstairs to the basement." I paused for a moment to control myself again. "She emerged a few days later, frightened to death and shaking like a leaf. She never wanted to talk about what happened down there but we all knew she must have been subjected to some kind of torture.

"We soon found out what it was that she had had to endure......Apparently James had gotten a taste for inflicting physical pain because after a while he started showing up in our room at night to take us downstairs for a few hours of torture. He took great care never to leave any visible tracks of it on our bodies and no one ever found out what we were submitted to......"

"That was all James' doing though....." I continued. "The torture, the electroshocks...........I don't think doctor Whitlock knew about that. He thought that what they were doing in the guinea pig room was good. They were trying to find cures for mental diseases that had been plaguing human kind for ages......."

"Sick son of a bitch," Rose huffed.

"He was," I admitted. "Though he didn't see himself as such."

"You're not telling me you feel sad about his death are you?' Rose growled.

"No," I said honestly. "I would have liked to see the sick bastard locked up in some kind of stinking cell for the rest of his life but at least he paid for what he did to us. What I was trying to say is that out of the two evils the torture doctor Whitlock subjected us to was the lesser one."

"As time got by I slowly started to slip into some kind of catatonic state. It might have been the side effect of some many drugs being pumped into my body, though I can't say for sure. Even in my drug induced haze I could hear the doctor and James arguing sometimes. I think the doctor might have found out about James' extra curricular activities at some point. I can't be sure of it though........perhaps it was just wishful thinking on my part."

"How did it end?" Edward asked, his voice coming from across the room like a soft melody.

"It ended in fire," I explained. "One night the whole world around me turned into an angry blaze of red hot fire. I was locked up in the observation room, far away from the patient wing where the fire started. The fire spread so quickly that before anyone knew what had happened it was too late and most of the patients had suffocated in their rooms."

"I could feel the room around me starting to heat up and the smoke burning into my lungs, though I never knew what was happening," I went on. "Just as I thought that I was gong to die doctor Whitlock ran into the room and dragged me out, depositing me on the lawn in front of the institution before running back into the building."

"He died in there, didn't he?" Garrett asked.

"Yes," I answered. "There was an explosion not long after he pulled me out. It happened even before the emergency services arrived. Most of the staff, still trying desperately to rescue some of the patients who were trapped into their rooms, where killed in that blast. Apart from me only two others survived. Well, now it turns out there were three......."

"You mean James died?" Emmett asked.

"That's what they told me," I shrugged. "He was supposed to be at the hospital. He called home to say he had gotten so caught up in his work that he was staying overnight. When he didn't come forward after the fire they assumed he was one of the dead. The heat of the fire had been so intense that some of the victims bodies were completely destroyed."

"What happened to you?" Bella asked, squeezing my hand again.

"I don't know," I chuckled. "I fainted soon after they got me out and woke up in hospital almost a week later...."

"_By the time Alice was saved her brain had started to shoot itself down after all of the mental and physical torture she had endured,"_ Carlisle, who until that point had been silent, explained. _"Not only was she lucky to have gotten out of the building alive....she was also lucky her body possessed of an almost superhuman strength to pull her through the next couple of days, when she was balancing on the edge of death." _

"_When I found Alice she was in hospital and still unconscious. She opened her eyes only a few days later but, as the drugs she had been administered were still affecting her greatly, not much could be learned from her. It took weeks before all of the rubbish they had pumped into her body had left her system and she slowly started to revert to the Alice we all know and love." _

"I was really lucky in finally finding doctors who didn't just take the 'fruitcake' label that had been stamped on my forehead when I was little for granted. After they found out what kind of junk had been pumped into my body they decided to hold off on assessing my mental state until I was completely sober," I added. "Could you believe the shock on their faces when they found out there was nothing wrong with me?"

"_I got in touch with Mr. And Mrs. Lee shortly after the fire and explained to them what had happened to their daughter. They were shocked, as was to be expected, but still hesitant to receive their daughter back into their midst. To prevent Alice from being submitted to the same evil as she had been forced to endure for almost two years I suggested they place her in the care of a woman I knew very well and who wasn't only a very responsible and respected citizen but also a devout Catholic. Her name was Esme Evenson." _

"WHAT!" Bella, Rose and Emmett yelled at once.

"You were brought up by Esme? Our Esme?" Rose added.

"I was brought up by all three of the angels," I chuckled. "They lived in a large house on the outskirts of town back then and there was plenty of room in there for an itty-bitty little thing like me."

"So that's why you've been an angel for ages now," Bella laughed. "You were raised as one."

"Born and bred," I laughed along with her.

"What about your parents?" Rose asked. She knew that like her, I had no contact with my mom and dad.

"From the moment I woke up I started to find out how abnormal my life had been up to that point. I learned about the world that existed outside of the windows of my room and how the parents in that world treated their children with love and understanding instead of the coldness and distrust I had experienced at home."

I shook my head, thinking about how strange the world outside had seemed to me. Growing up in a tiny and very sheltered community had made me pretty unworldly. I discovered that apart from fear and ugliness the world held so much beauty and love it could make your heart sing.

"At first I didn't want anything to do with the people who had brought me into this world but my therapist advised me to at least call them one last time, even if it was just to get some sort of closure," I continued. "The phone call was....nice enough but I could feel the bond between us had snapped the minute they had shipped me off to Lark Hill. They were strangers to me then....and not the kind of strangers I would have liked to meet."

"So that was it?" Bella asked. I felt sorry for her. I knew that she wanted nothing more than to get her parents – both of them – back and the fact that someone just walked away from them must have hurt.

"Yes," I sighed. "I informed them that I was happy where I was at that moment and that I would appreciate if they just let me be. They accepted and that was it. I got discharged from the hospital a couple of days later and as soon as I was free Rachel Maria Lee became Mary Alice Brandon."

"How did you come up with the name?" Rose asked.

"Alice in Wonderland," I chuckled. "It was the first real novel I ever read. Esme got it for me when she first came to see me. She told me Carlisle had described the way I felt – being released into the real world for the first time in my life - to her and she immediately thought of that novel. When I read it I knew what she meant by that."

"_And so Alice grew into the wonderful woman we know today,"_ Carlisle concluded.

"Thank Carlisle," I said, hoping Carlisle would hear my gratitude through my voice wherever it was that he was at the moment. "Give Esme a kiss from me."

"_I will,"_ Carlisle chuckled. _"Now to get back to the matter at hand.......It appears James wasn't killed in the fire at Larkhill." _

I shivered once again, remembering how frightened I had been most of the night. When Bella took off after James every fiber in my being had wanted to stop her before it was too late. I knew she had been trained to fight off creeps like him but the fact that she was out there on her own scared me half to death. The only comfort to me was that she had a special agent who was probably armed to the teeth with her.

When the first shots had thundered through my ear piece I had felt so guilty.

It was because of me that my friend was in danger.

It was because of me that she had gone after him.

If she ended up hurt or even worse it would be because of me.

Luckily they had made it out of there relatively unscathed and, judging by the way we found them, happy enough not to accuse me of almost killing them but it had still been too close for comfort.

"The fact that James stole those vials scares the crap out of me," I admitted. "He has been trained by Whitlock. He knows what to do with them."

"Do we even know for certain this James dude stole the vials?" Emmett argued.

"Can you pull up the tapes from the robbery?" I asked. "I am sure there must be something in there to identify him."

"Sure sweets," he replied, projecting the grainy security camera footage on the screen.

I studied it again, racking my brain for something – anything – I could remember about the man who haunted my memories.

"There!" I yelled. "Can you freeze the frame a few seconds back and zoom in on the hand?" I saw how the masked man in the video took of his gloves for the tiniest hint of a second.

"Look," I said, trailing my finger over the pixilated hand on the screen. "One of my friends once bit him in the hand when he was prepping her for another round of torture. Do you see the scar on his hand? It's a perfect example of a female upper jaw."

"That's not enough to get a jury to convict him," Edward sighed.

"But it's enough for us to start investigating this further," Rose remonstrated.

"_I agree with Rosalie,"_ Carlisle interrupted, _"Now that we are all up to speed on what happened it is time we started to develop a plan. I think that we can safely say that the virus could not have landed in more dangerous hands than in those of James, even if we're not entirely sure if it is him. We have to do everything in our power to stop him." _

"How do you suggest we do that?" I was surprised to see the FBI guys were still keeping their cool. I had expected them to be furious about us meddling in their affairs.

"_An operation such as this cannot be successful if everyone works against one another,"_ Carlisle spoke. _"I agree with our friends from the FBI that it is essential we built up a good amount of evidence before we advance. Judging from what I have learned about this man he is extremely cautious and clever and I doubt he works alone. For now I believe we should focus our efforts on Whitlock pharmaceuticals." _

"What?" I couldn't believe this. I couldn't believe Carlisle wanted us to just ignored the fact that the whole population of Forks might be dying of a dangerous virus so that we could focus our attention on the son of a bitch whose father had caused all of this.

"_Whitlock pharmaceuticals might be the key to unlocking this case,"_ Carlisle went on, calm as a cucumber. _"I don't think it is a coincidence that James chose the exact same moment Jasper Whitlock came to Forks to unleash his evil on the world. It is all too connected." _

"If you put it like that...." I grumbled, hating the fact that Carlisle's explanation made sense.

"_Jasper Whitlock might be in great danger and – even though we know his father was a less than upstanding citizen – his son is innocent and deserves to be protected." _

"What do you suggest?" Edward asked.

"_I suggest that – with the support of Mr. Whitlock - one of my agents goes undercover in his company to assess the risks and protect him. The rest of us will work on finding James and his accomplices and stop them before they are able to do any damage." _

"I don't know...." Edward mused. "My director won't exactly be happy if he found out were enlisting the help of private detectives and neither would the local police."

"_I will speak with both director Gibbs and Eleazar Denali tomorrow,"_ Carlisle replied._ "The tree of us go back some time so I have no doubt they will keep an open mind about my proposition. In the mean time there is no time for us to waste so I propose we start making preparations as soon as possible."_

I almost laughed. Carlisle never wasted any time in getting the job done.

"So who did you have in mind for the undercover operation?" Emmett asked.

"Alice." Once again the calm and collected voice of Carlisle as he spoke almost shocked me.

What the hell?

* * *

_**Yes. What the hell? Why do you think Carlisle is sending in Alice? Even better.....what will Alice do?**_

_**As said before, this is not a happy chapter. The fact that a lot of things that happened to Alice in this chapter are based on things that really happened makes it even worse. The events at Lark Hill are based on a discovery somewhere in the early nineties of a home for mentally handicapped children where the patients were being abused and severely neglected. The treatment Alice received from her parents is based on stuff I discovered when I did a paper where I compared exorcism in the Early Modern catholic church and exorcism as it is still exercised in today's catholic church. The priest in this chapter violated just about every rule the church has set for exorcism but I found that sadly those things do happen in real life. **_

**_If you have any questions about this chapter or the direction of this story, feel free to ask. There is also a topic for this story in the 'crossover' section at the twilighted boards. I post teasers, pictures and chapter songs over there._**

_**For now, please let me know what you thought of this chapter.**_


	16. My favorite game

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

* * *

_**I think that after the last few chapter you would all agree with me that these girls (and the boys) deserve a night of fun and games.**_

* * *

**My favorite game**

_**(Bella Swan)**_

"I can't believe Carlisle is asking me to do this!" Alice huffed. "He knows what they did to me. He knows how I feel about _that_ family!"

I could understand her anger very well. Hell, if it were me I'd be fucking seething.

"I know Ally," I soothed, wrapping my arms around her. "But you're the best undercover agent we have. You know Rose and I can't act worth a damn."

"Thanks Bella," Rose interrupted from the drivers seat.

"You know I love you babe," I chuckled. "But its true."

"Whatever," she half growled.

All three of us knew it was true. Sure, Rose and I could keep up an act for a few hours or even a day if we really had to but between her temper and my tendency to blush whenever I was lying we both weren't exactly prime undercover material. Not the kind of girls you'd send out to unravel a dangerous criminal operation.

"This is just fucked up," Alice sniffed.

"It is," I agreed, hugging her a little closer.

"And now I have to save the ass of the son of a bitch's son!"

"Let's not think about that tonight," I said as Rose stopped the car in front of our building. "Emmett promised us a night of booze and games, so let's just enjoy ourselves. We'll worry about all the rest tomorrow."

"Okay," Alice agreed, starting to sound a little bit more like her old self again as she got out of the car.

At least I had been able to help her just a little bit.

Listening to what had been done to my best friend made me feel so guilty.

Here I had been, whining endlessly about my misery when Alice had literally gone though hell. What bad things had really happened to me? Sure, my life hadn't exactly been a picnic int the park but at least I had been free and safe and the years leading up to it had been happy enough.

All my life I had been surrounded by people who loved and cherished me and accepted me for who I was. I had always taken that for granted, until now. I had never even entertained the thought that there were people in this world – like Alice's parents – who would willingly subject their own flesh and blood to the torture she had just described.

"Why did you never tell us?" Rosalie asked quietly as all three of us flopped down on the sofa in anticipation of the boys arrival.

"I knew how you'd react," Alice replied. "I know you guys feel sorry for me and all but I can't stand seeing the pity in your eyes. It makes me feel abnormal again."

"Abnormal?" I hadn't looked at it that way.

"Like I deserve to be pitied," she sighed. "I've spend every day since I was discharged from hospital enjoying life the normal way, just being a normal girl going about her daily business. I knew I should have probably told you more about what happened to me in the past but I was so scared it would change things. I couldn't go back to being watched like I was something.....strange again."

"So you were afraid of how we would react?" Rose snorted.

"Yes,"Alice said softly. "All my life I have been treated as if I was different. I just want to be normal."

"I think you're the first girl I've ever met who wants to be normal," I snorted.

"So I'm a freak," Alice grinned back. "What's new?"

"I thought this was supposed to be a night of fun and games?" Rose intervened. "When did we turn into a bunch of blubbering bimbo's? I thought it was just the pixie who was out of her mind."

"Rose!" I yelled, looking at Alice to gauge her reaction.

"It's okay Bella," Alice immediately said. "I don't want you to stop making fun of me just because you know the truth. I was actually hoping Rose would say a thing like that."

"Thanks pixie," Rose grinned. "It's always nice to know your sneers are being appreciated."

"Just don't let it go to your head," Alice quipped, rolling her eyes.

"I remember back when I was just released from hospital after being....attacked by 'he who shall not be named'," Rose explained. "I used to hate it when people treated me like I was a porcelain doll. I just wanted to go on as if nothing had happened but somehow the people around me had other plans."

"I don't want to be a frail little princess," Alice stated. "I want to kick ass."

"Don't we all," Rose mused.

"And now I have to babysit the son of a mad scientist," Alice added. "So much for kicking ass. I'll miss out on all of the fun."

"We'll try and remember you when we take out that James dude," Rose chuckled. She was never one to commiserate.

"Bitch."

"You know you love me," Rose retorted, ruffling Alice's hair as she walked past her towards her bedroom. "I suggest you ladies start bulking up on clothes as well. Unless you'd like to strip naked in front of the guys that is....."

"I think Bella may want to do that, don't you darling?" Alice grinned, reverting back to her old self again.

"Back the fuck off," I growled, wondering how many of those remark would follow tonight. My guess was many.

"That's not what you said to Edward earlier," Rose teased, standing in the doorway to her room.

"Edward....I like you a lot," Alice sang, mimicking my voice.

Damn those microphones! I should have gotten rid of them before I made my declaration to Edward.

"How long will it be until she drags him off to her room to screw his poor brains out?" Rose continued.

I knew she was just trying the get a rise out of me.

Well, she was succeeding.

"What....afraid of a little competition in that department Rosalie dear?" I quipped. "How long did it take you to succumb to Bosleys charms yesterday? I seem to remember you had him on your bed moaning your name in ten minutes flat."

"At least we weren't feeling each other up in a busy nightclub," Rose retorted.

"No, you chose to go down on our boss at the office," I chuckled.

"Shit, I forgot about that one," she giggled. "Well....at least I am getting me some. That's more than can be said for the two of you." With that she turned on her heels and walked into her room.

It was so like Rosalie Hale to always want to have the last word.

"I think we'd better take her advise," Alice said, opening the door to her room. "Oh and Bella?"

"Yes?"

"Don't think I didn't notice what you did to your dress," she half growled.

Right. The tear in the dress. I had completely forgotten about that.

"Tearing up a thousand dollar dress for the heck of it," she growled so soft I didn't think I was supposed to hear.

"Hey! You try running in this thing," I retorted, pointing at the skirt of my dress.

"THEN DON'T DO THAT!" Alice yelled.

"And let the bad guy get away?"

"Whatever," she growled, not liking having to admit defeat, as she disappeared in her room.

Right.

Change of clothes.

I looked around my room as I dressed in some comfortable sweats and a t-shirt, layering up for the sake of the game. I wouldn't get away with too many layers – Emmett would never let me live that down – but a t-shirt underneath a hoodie wouldn't attract that much suspicion.

I tried not to think about the fact that Edward, the guy who had just admitted he liked me, would be spending the night at our place.

Did he expect us to have sex?

I didn't know that. He didn't seem like the type of guy who would expect a good fucking as payment for admitting his feelings.

On the other hand....he was a guy.

Was I ready for us to have sex?

Hell yes!

I had wanted him the moment I had seen him. It would be so easy for me to give in to thos feelings but one question remained......

Was it okay for me to be ready?

That question was a little harder for me to answer. My body appeared to be ready – hell, more than ready even. I only had to think about him to start feeling that familiar heat starting to build up in my core.

My mind, however, was another matter entirely. I wasn't used to dating a guy like him. A normal guy. A nice guy.

How the fuck was I supposed to act around him?

It almost made me yearn for the days when I was just dating random idiots like Mike Newton. You knew what to expect from guys like that.

Nothing.

It was easy.

Now I had to figure out how to give and receive and all that shit.

I did a quick run around my room, making the bed and throwing the dirty clothes that were strewn across every surface in the hamper. In that case if we did end up in my room I wouldn't have to feel embarrassed by a bra hanging from the door of my closet or dirty socks popping up somewhere.

I was just about done when I heard a knock on the door. That would be the boys.

Emmett called ahead to let us know they would drive by the guy's hotel first so that Edward and Garrett could change out of their suits and into something a bit more comfortable.

"I'll get it," I announced, walking up to the front door. "Alice? Rose? Would you mind taking care of the rest?"

We still needed to get the game set up and drinks and stuff out on the table.

"No problem Bella," Alice grinned, walking out of her room in her pink couture sweats. Only Alice would be able to feel comfortable in something that cost more than the bulk of my wardrobe together. "Nervous?"

"A bit," I admitted. There was no point in hiding it.

"Don't be," she ordered. "He's just a guy Bella."

"But I really like him," I whispered.

"Then let him know," she grinned, patting me on the back. "Make us proud."

Right. Make them proud.

Let's try opening the damn door first.

"Hey Bella babe!" Emmett boomed, picking me up and crushing me in one of his bear hugs.

"Bosley," I croaked. "Can't breathe."

"Sorry," he chuckled. "I keep forgetting that in spite of all your brawn you're just a fragile little pip-sqeak."

"Say that again and you'll be sorry," I retorted. Emmett may be a big guy but I had learned how to make use of that in a fight. Muscle and size had nothing on cunning and agility.

"Where's that hot woman of mine?" Emmett asked, changing the subject.

"Still in her room," I laughed, seeing how Emmett's face changed from goofy to lustful in no time at all. "I wouldn't bother her though. Not if you plan on spending the night in said room."

"I'll just go help the pixie set up, then," he sighed, letting his eyes linger on Rose's door for another minute before he stepped further into the apartment, leaving me face to face with the object of my own desire.

"Hi," I said, not sure of what to say. "So, this is my place."

Great.

Classic.

As if he didn't know that.

"It's nice," he said. "So you made it back okay?"

I had a feeling he was feeling just as uncomfortable as I was at the moment.

"Yes," I said, looking at Alice who had hijacked Garrett and was showing him around our apartment. That girl was never more dangerous than when she had the prospect of giving a guided tour around the house she decorated.

"We just....stopped by our hotel to change out of our suits," he continued, still looking at his feat.

"I know. Emmett called," I stammered. I was sad to see the tuxedo gone, even though our trek through the deserted hospital wing had caused it to get all dirty and wrinkled. Still, there was no sight quite like the sight of Edward in a tux.

"We were just setting up for tonights game," I continued, after a few awkward moments of silence.

"What game are we going to play?" Garrett asked. Somehow he had miraculously escaped Alice's clutches.

"Trivial Pursuit," I grinned, knowing the reaction I was probably going to get.

"Trivial pursuit?" Garrett groaned, not troubling himself with hiding his disappointment as he turned to Emmett. "I thought you promised us a night of hot and bothered games. I assumed there would be at least some naked mud wresting involved."

"Ewwww," Alice growled in disgust. "Do you actually think I'd volunteer to play around in the mud? That stuff gets everywhere!" The way she waved her hand in front of her tiny body wasn't really helping Garrett to pull his mind out of the gutter if you asked me.

"Isn't that the point?" he snickered.

"Look asshole," Rose had no qualms about telling it like it was. "If you want to see people crawling around in the mud then I suggest you strip down and find a hose because none of us ladies is game. Right?"

All three of us nodded. I had been in a mud fight once, a couple of moths back and Alice was right. The stuff really did get everywhere.

"So the rules are as follows.....," Alice rattled off, all remnant traces of sadness gone, "we stick to the die hard 1981 edition, none of the fancy new stuff. Because this is just basically one boring long ass game and most people know the questions anyway we came up with a new way of making it sexy and a whole lot quicker." She paused for dramatic effect, looking around her at our faces. "If you fail to answer one of the questions correctly you loose one item of clothing."

"So we're just supposed to strip naked huh?" Garrett mused.

"Not if you answer your questions correctly," Alice chuckled. "And just so you know......keep your penis covered at all timed. No one here is interested in seeing that. If you find yourself stripped down to your underwear you're out of the game."

"Right," Garrett chuckled.

"Everything clear?" Alice asked, looking around the room. "Let's play then!"

"I want to go first!" Emmett yelled, grabbing the dice from the center of the board and holding them to his chest. "And I want to be the manly brown color."

"Only an idiot like him would choose the color of shit," Rose muttered under her breath. "I really wonder what I see in him sometimes."

"My unfaltering ability to put a smile on your face?" Emmett grinned as Alice – standing behind him – mouthed 'cunnilingus'.

"That must be it," Rose giggled, blushing pink.

"Are they always like this?" Edward chuckled in my ear, the sensation of his warm breath tickling my skin making me shiver.

"They are actually behaving themselves quite well....for now," I replied. "You should see them in an hour or so, when they've soldiered their way through a bottle of Scotch."

"That bad?" he laughed.

"Well.....," I grinned. "It depends on your definition of bad. Have you ever seen Caligula?"

"Should I be afraid?" he asked with a mock shocked expression on his face.

"Terrified," I laughed. "No evil could ever compare to a drunk pixie."

"I heard that!" Alice growled.

"Tough luck," I quipped.

"Would you like me to give dear Edward here a little more detailed description of how the rules of our game came to be?" she growled. "I believe it involved a certain prude refusing to play if she had to strip down naked."

"So what if I don't feel the need to show the whole world what I'm made off?" I spat. "In most cultures that's perceived as good manners anyway."

"Where I come from it's called a prude," Rose chimed in.

"Let's just play?" Emmett intervened, still hugging the dice to his chest.

Somehow playing games with Rose and Alice always ended up in having a fight about the difference in morals between the three of us. I swear, the word 'modestly' was strangely absent in both their dictionaries.

It wasn't like I was a total prude – no matter what they said – just that the somewhat conservative morals of my childhood were still firmly ingrained in my being.

Sometimes I envied Alice and Rosalie about the way they were so completely comfortable with their bodies they wearable to just walk around the house naked whereas I was blushing fire engine red if I had to cross the room carefully wrapped in the largest towel I could find.

Being an Angel had stretched my boundaries a little but – according to Alice and Rose – not enough.

I was pulled out of my thought by the sound of dice rolling over the game board as Emmett moved his play piece out of the large center hexagon.

"Sports and Leisure," Emmett grinned, "bring it on."

"You're so going to loose your shoes over this one," Garrett chuckled. "This country hosted the first Soccer World Cup in 1930."

It was clear he had never played Trivial Pursuit with Emmett before.

Emmett was the fucking king of Trivia.

I didn't believe my own eyes the first time we played.

Emmett might look and act like a sluggish goofball but he most certainly wasn't. After all....being a Bosley took more than a winning smile and some muscle.

"Easy," Emmett snickered. "Uruguay."

"What?" Garrett asked, looking from the answer to Emmett face.

"The correct answer is Uruguay," Emmett repeated, sitting up a little straighter.

"It's true," Garrett acknowledged.

"Like I would ever fail to answer a question about sports," Emmett muttered, pulling a new card out of the container. "Your turn Morgue Guy."

"I. Am. Not. Morgue. Guy," Edward hissed as he threw the dice.

"Whatever Eddie," Emmett muttered.

"Edward."

"Entertainment," Emmett stated. "This is the middle name of Donald Duck."

"What?" Edward asked incredulously.

"The middle name of Donald Duck," Emmett repeated as if poultry bearing more than one name was the most normal thing in the world."

"How the fuck am I supposed to know?" Edward laughed.

"Didn't your mommy let you read the Donald Duck when you were a kid," Emmett teased. "It's Fauntleroy."

"I was more of a batman kid," Edward shrugged.

"How come that doesn't surprise me?" Emmett chuckled. "Now loose the shirt."

"What happened to starting with the shoes?"

"Shoes are for daisies," Emmett shrugged. "Loose the shirt."

"You want me to help you with that?" I asked, mustering all of my courage.

"I'd love to," Edward replied, flashing his most deadly weapon – his little lopsided grin – at me.

"Come here then," I sang, motioning him over to me, trying not to let him know how his smile made me weak in the knees.

"I thought you'd never ask," he teased, scooting closer to me.

I moved over to him, turning my back to the rest of the room as I straddled his lap. If I was ever going to make it through this I would have to make sure to avoid the faces of the rest of the gang.

His arms almost immediately wrapped around my hips, holding me to his as I started opening the top buttons of his dark gray Oxford shirt.

I made sure to take my time, opening each button carefully as I unveiled more and more of his perfect chest. Part of me just wanted to tear the fabric from his body but I didn't listen to it. I wanted to savor this moment. I had been fantasizing about his chest ever since I had felt it pressed up against me a few days ago at the club.

As I slowly started to unveil the most perfect example of the male chest ever to have been sculpted by human hands I found out my fantasies hadn't done him justice.

I bit my lip, fighting the urge to just sit back and ogle as I proceeded to push the bottoms through their holes, my fingers gliding over his war, soft skin as I inched slowly toward his hips.

"Are you trying to kill me?" he whispered, his voice sounding rather labored.

"Just enjoying the moment," I muttered, leaning forward to push the unbuttoned shirt from his shoulders. "There......all done."

"Just wait until I get the chance to undress you," he whispered in my ear, biting softly on my earlobe.

Shit.

I moved off his lap quickly, not trusting myself to be so near him at a time like this.

He had other plans.

As soon as I was sitting beside him again his arms wrapped around my shoulders, keeping me flush against his side.

"If the two of you are finished, can we please get on with the game?" Emmett whined impatiently. "Rosey....it's your turn."

–

About an hour later we were well into the game, all of us having lost a couple of items of clothing along the way.

Garrett had bowed out gracefully after he had ended up in his briefs in record time. The only question he had managed to answer correctly was in the 'sports and leisure' category. He had tried to safe what was left of his ego by stating they were all girly questions anyway and that the fact he didn't know any of them only proofed how much of a man he was.

Right.

I was beginning to understand what detective Mulder had been saying a few days back about him being a jackass.

A nice jackass, but a jackass none the less.

Emmett was the only one of us who still had on most of his clothes. I was beginning to suspect that Emmett spend most of his working days memorizing the answers because the bastard knew everything.

Alice, Rose and I were tied together at the moment, the three of us sitting in our t-shirts and pants while Edward still had his jeans on.

I couldn't wait until he lost those.

Not just because I was wondering if he'd be a boxers or briefs kind of guy, but because the sight of his chest made me hungry for more.

Hungry for all of him.

"Arts and literature," Alice grinned, pulling me out of my Edward induced haze, as Rose landed herself on one of the brown fields.

"Bitch!" Rose muttered. She wasn't a very artsy kind of girl. It didn't mean she was stupid or anything, just that she was more into things that were a little more....flashy or hands on. Give her any question about Sports & Leasure, Science & Nature or Entertainment and she'd kill it.

"Hey!" Alice spat. "Don't you fucking shoot me! I'm just the messenger!"

Nothing to get these girls to cuss like a bunch of dockworkers than good old innocent boardgames.

"Oh! This is a good one!" Alice squealed as she read the question. "Ancient Chinese painters would never paint a picture of which part of the human anatomy?"

"How the fuck am I supposed to know?" Rose growled.

"I take it you don't know the answer?" Alice asked sweetly.

"Shut up you little psycho," Rose replied.

"It's their feet," Alice grinned. "Now loose the shirt you nympho skank."

"You're just jealous 'cause you're not getting any," Ruse huffed as she carefully pulled her shirt over her hair, revealing her burgundy lace bra.

It was a good thing the lights were low because I thought I actually saw Bosley drool a little.

"Your turn Bella," Rose spat, still glaring daggers at Alice. She always had been a sorry loser.

I rolled the dice, carefully surveying my options before I moved my playing piece.

I was in luck.

Arts and literature.

Headquarter.

"Hit me Barbie Girl," I grinned as I moved my play piece to the large brown square.

"The proceeds from this nineteenth century British novel were bequeathed to the Great Ormond Street Hospital for the Sick Children in London," she droned.

Shit.

I knew this.

I had to.

I was sure I had read about it somewhere.

If only I knew where.

"Clock's ticking," Rose sang, knowing I couldn't remember the answer.

"Shut up," I spat, hating myself for not knowing the answer to one of my favorite categories.

"I take it you don't know the correct answer?"

"I know it," I growled. "Just wait a minute until I can remember it."

"You know the rules Bella," Alice chimed in.

"As if you know the fucking answer fruitcake," I yelled.

"I do actually," she grinned smugly.

"Well I don't," I snarled, hated admitting defeat.

I immediately felt Edwards hand on the small of my back, his thumb stroking me though the fabric of my shirt, trying to calm me down.

"Would you like to do the honors pixie?" Rose grinned.

"I sure do," Alice sang. "John M. Barrie."

"Shit," I mumbled. I should have known that.

"Serves you right for not remembering your Johnny Depp facts," Alice grinned. "Now loose the shirt Bella baby."

"Okay," I sighed, moving my hands to the hem of the tight fitted Kings of Leon shirt I had worn under my hoodie.

"That's my job," Edward crooned in my ear, causing goosebumps to appear all over my body as he gently removed my hands from the fabric of my shirt.

Shit.

I was screwed.

"Are you ready?" he grinned, his eyes scorching into mine as he scooted closer to me.

"I guess," I stammered, trying to remain as calm as I could while the butterflies in my stomach fluttered around with the speed of a hurricane.

At least my shirt didn't have any buttons on it.

Just a simple matter of lifting the fabric over my head and we're done.

I could manage that.

Right?

Instead of grabbing hold of my shirt, as I expected, his fingers dipped underneath the fabric, his fingertips ghosting lightly over my skin. It was as if his touch ignited a fire. No more goosebumps, my skin was now blushing red hot.

"Edward.....," I warned.

"Yes Bella?" he asked sweetly.

"You were supposed to undress me," I added to the general hilarity of the rest of the gang. "Please take off my shirt."

"I thought you'd never ask," he chuckled, slowly lifting the thin fabric of my shirt while making sure his hands never lost contact with my overheated skin.

Boy, he was good at this stuff!

Edward eyes never left mine as he continued to lift the fabric over my head, but his stare never became uncomfortable. In fact, in some strange sort of way I actually drew strength from it. The strength not to turn into a bashful diaphoretic mess while the man of my dreams was slowly undressing me.

He pulled the shirt over my head quickly, taking in a sharp breath as his eyes ghosted over my chest for the slightest of moment before settling on my eyes again, a slight blush pinking his cheeks.

I looked down seeing that I had at least had the sense to wear a decent, slightly revealing but not pornographic, bra. It was a dark blue satin with purple and pink butterflies printed on the fabric.

At least Alice couldn't find fault with that.

"You're beautiful," he whispered, pulling me into his lap and wrapping his arms around me.

"Thanks," I croaked. "So are you."

I wanted nothing more than to kiss him that moment, or – even better - for him to kiss me but there was the fact that we were currently closely watched by our friends to take into consideration. Not that Alice and Rose wouldn't be extremely proud with me if I started attacking Edward in front of them – hell, I think they'd throw a party to celebrate – but that was not how I wanted it to happen.

He leaned in, as if he could read my mind and placed a soft chaste kiss on my lips before pulling away. "Emmett? I believe it's your turn," he said, never moving more than a fingers width away from me or breaking eye contact.

"Geography," I could faintly hear Emmett announce somewhere across the room.

It wasn't very surprising that Edward and I were both out of the game in no time at all after that. We were too distracted with each other. It was like the genie was lead out of the bottle the moment his hands touched my skin and we couldn't put that damn genie back in even if we wanted to.

The game was really heating up now, Alice and Rose combining their efforts to defeat Emmett the self declared King of Trivia. But really, they never stood a chance. Not even when they pulled together. Rose lost her final garment – her left sock – on a question about pumice and Alice – much to her own astonishment – was defeated when she failed to remember the first state that allowed women to vote.

"I RULE!" Emmett yelled as Alice's tiny fists slammed on the table with frustration. "I AM THE KING OF TRIVIA!"

"Try the King of Annoying Behavior," Rose muttered.

"You know you want me babes," he grinned, lifting Rose out of her seat and throwing her over his shoulder.

"PUT ME DOWN YOU BIG DUMB OAF OF A MAN!" Rose screamed, kicking her legs around her as Emmett carried her off towards her room.

It was all for show though.

Alice and I both knew that if Rose didn't want to do something, she wouldn't. And she sure as hell didn't let anyone cart her off caveman style if she didn't want to. Emmett would have been on the ground holding on to his balls if that were the case.

"Well ladies," Emmett grinned, smacking Rose's ass as he turned around again. "It was a pleasure playing with you but now I have....uhm....other things to do. I bid thee adieu."

"Goodnight Emmett, you great big hunk of a man!" Alice giggled. "Show that girl who's boss!"

We could hear Rose uttering a string of profanities, most of them about psychiatric patients and their tendency to be annoying before the door to Rose's room slammed shut.

"Good God, I hope they are a little quieter tonight," I sighed, knowing what was likely about to take place behind that door.

"You could always give them a run for their money," Alice quipped, waggling her eyebrows suggestively.

"Put a sock in it pixie," I growled, standing up. If I wasn't so nervous right now I might have found her comment amusing but...between me wondering if I should invite Edward back to my room or show him out I wasn't in the mood for jokes.

"So.....what do you want to do now?" Garrett asked, breaking the awkward silence that had arisen.

Alice threw me a poignant looking, wanting me to act before the moment passed.

Right, as if I needed more pressure.

It was strange how I hadn't been bothered by my nerves when I made my declaration to him a coupled of hours ago and basically ordered him to kiss me. I guess it was the remnants of the huge adrenaline rush being shot at had caused.

"Well.....I....w-was thinking," I started, inwardly hating myself for my weakness. I mean, why was it that I didn't have any trouble following an armed and dangerous criminal through a deserted hospital wing but couldn't find the words to invite a nice, decent guy into my bedroom.

Because he is that.

He is a nice decent guy.

I wasn't used to that.

"I'mactuallykindoftiredandthinkImightjustturninareyoucomingwithmeEdward?" I rattled, my tongue outsmarting my brain for the moment.

"It would be my pleasure," he stated, offering me his hand.

I was so completely baffled that he actually understood my words that it took me a moment to take his hand.

"What do you know?" Alice snickered, watching us like it was some kind of live entertainment show. "The guy speaks Bella!"

"I half expected Edward to go running out of the room yelling something about how girls had cooties," Garrett chimed in, flopping next to Alice on the sofa.

"FOR GOD'S SAKE BELLA!" Alice yelled after we had been silent for a while. "Go with him."

Right.

I took his hand and let him lead me to my room, all the while being careful not to take my eyes away from the ground. It was all I could do to keep myself from throwing up.

"That wasn't awkward at all," I muttered as I closed the door behind me before turning to Edward. "I'm sorry about that."

"Don't be," he said softly, taking my hand and kissing it. "Look Bella. I won't lie to you. I want to be with you. More than anything. But I also know we only met a couple of days ago and are moving into this – whatever it is – at warp speed. I am willing to adjust to any pace you set for us. Whatever makes you comfortable. So if you want me to leave....."

"NO!" I yelled, before he could continue. "I want you to stay."

"Good."

"Good?"

"Yeah," he said, the faintest hint of a blush coloring his cheeks. "I kind of want to stay."

"Good," I repeated, buying some time. "So what do you want to do?"

What was it about this guy that completely incapacitated my brain whenever it came to within a mile radius of him?

"We could talk?" he offered.

Now why didn't I think of it. Talking was good.

Talking was innocent and you could learn things about each other.

Yes. Talking was good.

"Would you like to come sit with me?" I asked, making myself comfortable on the bed.

Sure, talking on the bed kind of stretched the limits of innocent conversations but it was all I could offer in the way on seating arrangements so it would have to do for now.

"If you don't mind," he said cautiously.

"I don't," I chuckled, patting the space next to me.

He took of his shoes and lay down next to me, both of us lying on our sides, facing each other.

"Tell me about yourself," I said. "You seem to know almost everything about me, but there's so little I know about you."

"What? You're not hacked into the FBI intra webs?' he teased.

"Oh, we are!" I retorted. "But they don't have any other info on you apart from your academic achievements and personal particulars. I want to know about the person behind the facts."

"There's not much to tell," he shrugged. "I'm kind of boring."

"Somehow I find it hard to believe a secret agent can be boring," I laughed.

"The work isn't boring," he chuckled, "the person doing it is."

"Why don't you let me be the judge of that?" I offered, trying to resist the urge of touching his face.

"Fair enough," he sighed, rolling onto his back.

We spend the next hours talking about everything and nothing. He told me about his family. How he was born in Chicago but moved to Seattle with his mom and dad when his dad was offered a job at a prestigious Seattle law firm.

He told me how he used to want to become a soldier because he wanted to make the world a better place but his parents pushed him to pursue a career in law or medicine. He told me about his time at university. How moving back to the East Coast to attend Dartmouth had shown him a different world outside the protective and rather conservative bubble he had been raised in but how he had always failed to understand how his fellow students seemed to put their private lives above their studies.

He told me how the FBI had offered him a job straight out of college and how he had trained at Quantico to become a special agent. His parents had been disappointed by his choice in career but were all in all happy to see him happy and nicely situated in life.

He told me some things about his life as a special agent as well, though not much.

I understood.

There were some thing that couldn't be told. Because they weer classified or because you didn't want them to be real.

"So you see....," he shrugged, his head resting on his arms as he looked up at the ceiling, when he was finished telling me about his life. "I'm pretty boring after all."

"I don't think so," I said, snuggling into the crook of his arms, my head resting on his chest.

"Humph," he huffed, though his arms wrapped around me, holding me tightly to his chest.

"Hey!" I scowled, not liking this self deprecating side of him. "I think that compared to me you have lead a very exciting life."

"Says the girl who brought down one of the most dangerously instable criminal organizations in the state of Washington."

"Says the guy who once singlehandedly prevented some mad maniac from blowing up a train station during rush hour," I might not have been able to find out much about Edward from his personal file at the FBI but this I had been able to learn.

"We're not going to agree on this, are we?" he chuckled, looking down on me.

"Nope," I grinned. "But you might as well admit defeat anyway because I'm not dropping this."

"Are you always this annoying?" he sighed in a mock chagrined tone.

"Only when I really like someone," I grin.

Talking to Edward like that felt so...comfortable. It was almost like we had known one another for years and were just catching up on old times or something.

Sure, I had been nervous before, very nervous even, but all of that had gone. Right now we were just Edward and Bella, getting to know each other better.

"So you do like me," he teased.

"Did you have any doubts about that?" I huffed. "I mean.....I did tell you."

"Right after you called me every name under the sun for taking control of the situation."

"You so deserved it," I growled, thinking back on how annoying that had been.

"And what do I deserve now?" he asked, smiling his lethal crooked grin again.

If he ever knew just how that lopsided smirk of him affected me I would have to kill him. It was too dangerous a weapon to be out in the open.

I feigned having to think long and hard about his question but I couldn't quite suppress the way my face slowly crept up to his. "I think a kiss might be in order," I replied right before I captured his lips with mine.

"I think we need to stop now," he muttered against my lips as we broke apart for some much needed air. "I want you so much.....but I don't want to rush into anything."

"You're right," I sighed disappointedly.

I knew he was right, even though I hated to admit it. My body was so ready for him it wasn't even funny anymore but – if I was being honest – my mind wasn't. It needed more time to to understand what was happening.

If we didn't stop now I had a feeling we wouldn't be able to stop at all and if we continued to move this thing – whatever it was we had – forward at warp speed it might end up wrong.

I don't think either of us was prepared to risk that.

"I think I'll just get ready for bed," I groaned, reluctantly moving away from him. "Do you want to borrow one of my shirts?"

"I don't know if you noticed but I'm actually a bit bigger than you," he chuckled. "I don't know if they'd fit."

"Believe me," I laughed, throwing one of my nightshirts at him. "This one will fit. It's extra large. It almost like a dress to me."

I got ready for bed in my bathroom, splashing some cold water in my face to pull my brain out of its lust filled fog. It would do me no good right now to think of how Edward Masen was lying in my bed in a state of undress waiting for me at that moment.

No good at all.

In the end I couldn't stall going back into my room any longer so I took a deep breath, prayed nothing would happen to make me attack the poor unsuspecting male in my bed and walked back into my room.

Edward was lying in my bed – just as I thought – leaning against my headboard, his green eyes roaming over my body the moment it appeared in the doorway, darkening as they moved from my shorts and tank top to my uncovered legs and finally my chest.

Not good.

Not good at all.

"Like what you see?" I asked nervously.

"Y-yes," he stammered, blushing at being caught staring. "A little too much."

When he pulled back the covers and opened his arms for me to snuggle into it was my turn to be seriously flustered. Only continuous pep talk and the thought that sex would be better if we waited a little while longer kept me from listening to my body as I snuggled into his chest again, getting more comfortable in my own bed than I thought I had ever been.

Who needs a pillow when you could rest your head on Edward Masens?

"Sleep my Bella," he whispered, kissing my head.

"Goodnight Edward," I yawned, feeling myself drift into that cozy haze that usually preceded a night of deep sleep.

Before I could really drift off though, my mind had to take stock of the way I felt.

So much had happened today but strangely being shot at and almost dying in a dilapidated hospital wing wasn't the most important thing.

At least....not to my brain.

Falling asleep in the arms of Edward Masen as his scent enveloped me and made me feel more at home than I had ever felt before was.

I felt like my head was finally catching up with my heart and was starting to admit – even though it scared the crap out of both head and heart – that this might be it.

That I had finally found a decent guy who would love me just the way I was.

* * *

_**How long do you think Edward and Bella will keep be able to keep their hands to themselves?**_

_**I don't own an English version of Trivial Pursuit (Hell, I don't even own a Dutch one) so I had to make the questions up as I went using trivia websites (which was actually a lot of fun).**_

_**Some of you may think that Bella and Rosalie were a little harsh on Alice with the insanity jokes but I think it's exactly what Alice wanted. Before Bella and Rose found out the truth they just thought Alice was in a mental institution for about a month dealing with stress or something so they figured it was okay to joke about it (just like Alice and Bella call Rose a nympho and Alice and Rose comment on Bella's clothing and call her a prude). **_

_**The next chapter will be in Edwards POV and is called Between love and hate. Go bisit me at the CA-topic at the twilighted boards if you want to know what POV's I will be using in the coming chapters. I've posted an overview of all POV's over there.**_

_**For now.....please review.**_


	17. Between love and hate

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

* * *

**Between love and hate.**

_**(Edward Masen)**_

I was asleep.

I had to be.

There was no way last night could have been real.

There was no way this could be real.

There was no way I had fallen asleep, holding my angel in my arms after she had admitted having feelings for me.

Still, I wasn't sleeping.

If I had been sleeping this moment wouldn't have been disturbed by the annoying sound of someone knocking on the door.

"Masen?" Garrett's voice drifted through the room from the other side of said door. "We have to get going soon. Gibbs just called. He's getting impatient."

"What?" Bella's croaky voice sounded as she lifted her head up slightly.

"It's nothing," I whispered, kissing the top of her head, "just Garrett trying to wake me up."

She needed some time to register what I said.

"Do you have to go into work?" she asked, her eyes still squinting against the light. She looked so utterly adorable, half asleep with her hair standing in every direction. It made me wish we could wake up like that every morning for the rest of my life.

"I do," I said reluctantly, disentangling myself from her hold.

"I hope I didn't drool on you," she yawned, examining the front of my – her- shirt.

"Not that I remember," I chuckled. "Though I have to admit I was pretty out of it." I couldn't remember having slept as soundly as I had last night ever since I started out as an FBI agent. In spite of all the psychological assessments and the regular check ups we had to endure the job had a way of sneaking up on you when you least expected it. Preferably in your sleep.

After a while you got used to the fact that the faces of the people you hadn't been able to save or the casualties – whether innocent or guilty- you had caused to ensue would pop up in your dreams. You learned to deal. To evade sleep if you had to and get over the nightmares if they appeared.

Somehow Bella had been able to break that pattern.

She was such an enigma to me. I had always prided myself on my ability to read other people's characters but somehow she was so utterly different it was impossible for me to even predict what she was thinking. It was like she was on another frequency than the rest of the world.

I did notice how her behavior appeared to be different when her friends were around. She was more daring when she was under their scrutiny, it was almost like she was playing a role. Yes, it was part of the Bella I had come to know and love, but also, in a way, it was behavior completely foreign to her.

I had a feeling that the nervous, blushing Bella I had seen when we had gone into her bedroom last night was the girl she had been raised into and the confident vixen I had encountered at the club a couple of days ago was the Bella her job demanded her to be.

Then there was the Bella who didn't take crap from anyone, especially not a male FBI agent I had seen last night. Somehow I though that Bella was the one closest to the person she could be. The person she really wanted to be.

Those different personalities, though they might scare people off, only made her more fascinating to me. I loved how you never knew how she was going to react. How you never knew what Bella would be walking thought the door.

Last night had been amazing. I had never met a woman who made me feel so much at ease. I had had my share of passing girlfriends in the past but never had I encountered a woman I had felt comfortable enough with to share the secrets of my trade and the full history of my past.

With Bella it came as some kind of second nature to me.

Was this a sign that we were meant to be?

I sincerely hoped so.

"Is it okay if I use your shower?" I asked, glad that the clothes I had changed into last night weren't too inappropriate to be worn to work.

"Sure," she said, sitting up in her bed and rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. "I laid out a towel for you on the sink last night."

"Care to join me?" The question flew out of my mouth before I knew it.

Stupid!

Whatever happened to waiting for the right moment?

Whatever happened to being a fucking gentleman?

"What?" she looked up at me, blushing an adorable shade of pink.

"I don't know," I muttered. "I thought it would be wise to conserve water and help the environment and stuff but if you don't want to......forget I asked." I wanted to hit myself for both my episode of word vomit and the fact that I followed it up with behavior more fitting for a fifteen year old virgin.

"I'd like to," she said, her voice barely registering over a whisper.

"I promise I'll be good," I said, trying to not let my face show how happy I was on the inside.

"And what is that supposed to mean?" she purred, making it that much harder for me not to throw her back on the bed and ravish her until she would beg for mercy.

"I know we agreed not to jump into anything to soon so I hereby solemnly promise to keep my hands to myself," I said, crossing my hand over my heart.

Right.

Like that would be easy.

".....unless, of course, you can think of a different employment for them," I added, grinning like an idiot no doubt.

"Hmm," she mused, tapping her finger against her full plump lips as she walked into her adjoining bathroom. "I'd have to think about that."

I needed a minute to compose myself before I could walk into the bathroom where, judging by the sounds coming out of it, a very naked Bella was currently waiting for me under a hot shower.

What was I thinking inviting Bella to join me in the shower and promising to keep my hands to myself?

Had I completely lost my mind?

Had my dick completely taken over my brain?

I had to give myself a silent peptalk before I could move from the spot on the floor I had been nailed to ever since Bella walked into the bathroom.

I could do this.

I had done worse things than this and managed.

How hard could it be to share a shower with a beautiful woman?

"I can do this," I muttered to myself, taking a deep breath and walking into the steamy room while stripping out of my shirt and boxers.

"I was beginning to think you changed your mind," Bella chuckled the moment she heard me.

I couldn't stop myself from letting out a gasp as I saw the outline of her amazing body, water cascading over he skin, though the see through shower door.

"Are you okay?" she turned around and looked at me, a worried expression in her eyes.

"What?" I shook my head, trying to expel all lustful thoughts of the things we could have been doing if I hadn't promised to keep my hands to myself. "Yeah, I'm fine."

"Then what are you waiting for?" she giggled, opening the door for me. "You must be getting cold out there."

I noticed her eyes gliding over my body, lingering for a moment on my hardening cock as her cheeks flared with her blush before she averted her eyes and turned her back to me again. I felt an odd combination of relief and mirth. Relief that she had seen me, all of me, and hadn't found me repulsive, not even in my current state of excitement. Joy because, judging by the blush on her face, my naked body awakes the same feelings in her as hers stirred in me.

I stepped into the shower, my eyes wandering over Bella's amazing form, now revealed to me without the hindrance of clothing.

My God. She was perfection.

I followed the streams of water as they glided down her back, smoothly running over the gentle curves that shaped her body.

Dear Lord I had to find something to keep my hands occupied with soon before I would break my promise to keep my hands to myself.

"Do you want me to wash your hair for you?" I asked, my voice sounding a little shaky.

"That would be nice," she almost whispered. Was it me or did her voice sound as unsteady as mine?

I squirted some of her strawberry scented shampoo on my hands and started massaging the stuff into her hair, taking extra care nor to get it into her eyes.

She sighed contently and leaned back a little. "That feels so good."

"Good," I muttered. "I want to make you feel good." I slowly turned her around and guided her under the stream to rinse the soap out of her hair, stealing a quick kiss from her lips as I went.

"My turn," she grinned as she grabbed her shampoo bottle. "I hope you don't mind strawberries."

"Not at all," I chuckled as I got down on my knees, giving her access to my head. "They have become my favorite fruit of late."

"Good," she whispered, her hands weaving through my hair as she massaged my scalp.

I closed my eyes, relishing in the feeling of pure relaxation that washed over me. She was right. This felt good.

So good.

I kissed her stomach, tracing a trail of butterfly kisses upwards as I rose to my feet again to rinse the shampoo out of my hair, hoping I didn't overstep any of our boundaries by doing so.

"Edward," she whispered, her eyes darkening with lust.

"Yes, Bella?" My voice came out all low and husky.

"Please."

It was all she had to say for me to wrap her in my arms and crush her to my chest, feeling every inch of her glorious body against mine as I kissed her deeply, profoundly, hoping it could convey every feeling she made me feel.

One of her hands traveled from my waist to my almost painfully hard cock. It twitched with excitement as it felt her hand wrap around it.

"Bella," I warned as she started to stroke up and down my length. I didn't know if I could keep my promise if we continued down this path, however much every fiber of my being wanted to.

"It's okay Edward," she whispered, trailing kisses over my pecs as she increased her pace. "I just want to make you feel good."

"You're succeeding," I croaked, almost loosing it there and then and I leaned back against the tiled wall and closed my eyes, willing myself to keep it together for at least an acceptable length of time.

My hand had started to move on their own accord, one of them massaging her breast as the other moved down to her core, parting her wet folds as my thumb started to circle her clit.

Her hand gripped me a little firmer in its hold as she let out a deep moan. "Edward," she panted. "God that feels so good."

"I'm glad you think so," I purred, slipping one of my fingers into her core and moving it along with her strokes.

As I added another finger I could slowly start to feel her walls tighten around me, her hands pumping my cock a little faster as she started getting close to her release.

"Cum for me Bella," I whispered in her ear. "Do you think you can do that?"

"Oh God," she moaned and I could feel her walls starting to contract around my fingers as her whole body started shaking with her release, the sight of it and the sound of the soft, throaty moans she emitted, making me cum along with her.

"I could get used to this way of starting my day," I chuckled, kissing her shoulder and neck as we held onto one another.

"Hmm, so could I," she purred contently. "You're very good with your hands by the way." .

"So are you," I laughed as my hands started to wander over her body again.

We stood there, silently enjoying one another until the water started turning cold and Bella turned off the tabs. I took my time drying her body, exploring every inch of her as we both got ready for the day ahead. There was nothing I wanted more than than to keep her here with me and show her just how much I desired her, but I knew Garrett was waiting for me outside her bedroom door.

I sighed, pushing my lustful thoughts aside. Bella was too special to be enjoyed in a quick fuck. When we would make love I wanted to take my time with her. I couldn't wait to get to know her body even better, to find out how to manipulate it so that it would be driven to the brink of insanity.

The thought of her, lying beneath me, her whole body flushed with lust, almost made me forget – made me want to forget - that I had a very annoyed boss waiting on the phone in Denali's office.

"I have to get going," I sighed, not wanting this moment to come to an end just yet.

"I know," she said. "I have to get to the office as well. Alice will need my help to get ready for her undercover job."

"Do you think she'll be okay?" I asked before I opened the door.

"I have no doubt about it," Bella smiled. "She may be small but she's tougher than anyone I've ever met."

"I'll call you as soon as our meeting is over," I said, kissing her one last time before I walked out of the room to find Garrett already waiting impatiently for me.

"You took your time," he huffed as we walked out of the apartment.

"Some things cannot be rushed," I grinned.

"I hope you at least had a good time," he growled. "Gibbs and Denali want to speak to us."

Th drive over to the police station was silent, both of us trying to think of ways to convince our boss that cooperating with Cullen Investigations was a good idea.

It wasn't going to be easy.

Gibb wasn't the kind of guy who would grill an agent for thinking outside the box but there were limits and joining forces with private investigators was miles outside those limits.

"Let's just get this over with," I sighed as we entered Eleazars office.

"Good morning gentlemen," he called. "Nice of you to join us. We have director Gibbs joining us on speaker."

"Sir," I said in the direction of the telephone.

"Masen....Scully. We've received a rather strange request from Carlisle Cullen," he started. "I believe he wants us to join forces with his team of private investigators."

"Yes sir," Garrett nodded. "We think that may actually be a good idea."

"Are you out of your fucking minds?" It was amazing how two grown up men could swear in such perfect synchronicity.

It was to be expected.

Really.

If I would have been in their shoes I probably would have done the same.

"Has all the rain affected your ability to think clearly?" Gibbs spat through the phone. "I knew I should have send McGee and David to do the job."

"I have to agree with Gibbs here," Eleazar nodded. "I know we owe Carlisle for the thing with the guy in the place and all but he can't expect us to just follow his lead like he's running this freaking operation!"

"I think we should give this a shot," I offered, knowing the reaction I was probably going to get. "The fact that they got a member of The Pack to defect tells us that they know what they are doing and from what I saw at the hospital last night their equipment puts us to shame."

"So it is your professional opinion that we should agree to Carlisle Cullen's proposition?" I had to admit Gibbs was handling this a lot better than I had expected.

That was until Garrett let out a snort.

"Why is agent Scully laughing?"Gibbs, immediately picking up on it, asked.

I tried to signal Garrett to shut the hell up but either he didn't see me or he didn't listen.

"I think agent Masen might have a hidden agenda here," Garrett chuckled. "Nothing too serious boss," he added quickly, "though it might make him a little more eager to cooperate with Cullen Investigations."

"Explain yourself," Gibbs barked, he never liked it when people didn't just cut to the chase,.

"He has a thing for one of their private investigators sir," Garrett said quickly.

"My....feelings for Bella have nothing to do with this," I seethed, quickly scanning Eleazar's face to see how he was reacting to all of this. It was, after all, only a few days ago that I had sat here in this very office explaining to him that I wasn't interested in dating his daughter.

"It doesn't?" Eleazar mused, humor the predominant emotion on his face.

"No it doesn't," I growled, a little hurt by the lack of confidence in my abilities to keep business and pleasure separated. "Look.....whatever we decide today isn't going to keep Cullen Investigations from meddling in this inquiry. Garrett and I have both seen these girls and we think only locking them up in jail would stop them and I have no doubt Carlisle has a bunch of spare angels lined up somewhere for when that happens. We're going to have to deal with them whether we want to or not. All I'm saying is that we might as well reap the benefits."

"Reap the benefits," Garrett hiccuped. "Yeah...I can see how you're planning to do that."

"Actually....As much as I hate to admit it agent Masen does have a point there," Eleazar mused. "Over the last couple of months I have had a few dealings with Carlisle and his team of investigators and I can say that they are pretty persistent."

"So you both agree with Masen now?" Gibbs seethed. It was clear that though he was keeping an open mind about this, he still didn't like the possibility of outsiders involved in his case.

"Yes," Garrett said calmly. "They know what they are doing and I can see that, considering the complexity of this case and the possible consequences of failure, we could benefit from their input."

Eleazar and I must have looked at the guy like he had grown a second head. That must have been the most serious and eloquent we had ever seen him. Who would have thought it possible.

"I see your point," I could hear in the tone of his voice how much Gibbs must have hated admitting it. "Still.....I don't like the idea of enlisting the help of a bunch of private cowboys. They could end up screwing this investigation up."

"I don't think they will," Eleazar mused. "I know of Carlisle Cullen's reputation. Yes, his operatives might be sometimes scaling the borders of what is legally acceptable during their investigations but so do we. Well....at least we did in my day." We both laughed, knowing full well Gibbs had sometimes pushed us to revert to somewhat more dubious tactics to get the job done. Thank God safety of the people we weer protecting still prevailed over methodology. What good would come from sticking to the rules and regulations in the book if people were dying? It was a lesson that I had, unfortunately, learned the hard way. "I can, however, say that his investigators are some of the best I've seen in my life, government employees included."

"You'd better keep them in check Masen," Gibbs sighed, knowing he had to give on this subject. "If those girls screw up our investigation it will be your ass on the line. Not mine."

"Understood sir," I replied, outwardly solemn but inwardly rejoicing.

"I expect you to keep me up to date on everything that's going on," Gibbs warned. "Give me some results." He didn't wait for a reply before he broke the connection. We all knew we were taking one hell of a risk but with the situation playing out in front of us as it was I didn't see we had any other option.

That and I couldn't wait to

"Where is everyone by the way?" Garrett asked as we stepped out of Eleazar's office.

"Operation 'Dogcatcher'," Eleazar replied. "They are bringing in The Pack as we speak."

"That's soon," I whistled.

"What can I say? My guys are pretty eager to teach those boys a lesson," Eleazar shrugged. "They where more than willing to put in the extra hours to bring all this about before the rest of The Pack could get suspicious."

"Let's go tell the girls," I said, dying to get back to Bella.

"A little eager are we?" Garrett grinned.

"You bet," I shrugged as I pulled out of the police station's parking lot. I had no desire to deny it. I was in love with Bella and I wanted to be with her every moment I could.

"I can't believe Gibbs actually gave in," Garrett chuckled, changing the subject.

"I know," I replied, still unable to believe it myself. "Carlisle must have had some pretty persuasive arguments because I don't think Gibbs just made up his mind based on what we were saying."

"Do you think Gibbs knows who Carlisle is?"

"Who knows?" I said. The identity of Carlisle Cullen was still an enigma to me. I had gone through all the information the FBI and other government institutions had on the guy but none had been able to give me any guess on his identity. "Though I don't think so. Not even the girls know who the hell he is."

"It must be strange," Garrett mused. "Risking your life for a guy you've never even met."

"From what Bella says the guy is completely in the know of just about everything that happens at the office and in the girls' life. He saved them in their time of need, took them in and cared for them. I think they'd do just about everything for the guy. That's what worries me."

"You're afraid they are taking too many risks?" Garrett asked.

"Yes," I admitted. "Take the fact that Bella went in hot pursuit of a guy even after she knew he was armed. She didn't have a gun of her own or even a bullet proof vest......."

"She had you though," he grinned.

"I don't think she would have stopped if I hadn't been there," I growled.

Bella's tendency to ignore risks was something that had me worried. I knew that, even though we would be working together, there was no way I could keep an eye on her 24/7 even in spite of the bugs I had planted at her apartment.

Those damn bugs.

I regretted planting them almost the moment I did it. I knew it was wrong, both professionally and morally, but the thought of being able to keep track of Bella had pressed me to pull through with it.

It still did.

I had never listened to the tapes or even thought about doing so, but then again....Bella had never been in danger. Well....at least not while I wasn't with her.

I had decided to remove the devices when we headed over to the girls' apartment last night but unfortunately I hadn't been able to.

"Do you think they will be able to get Alice undercover at Whitlock Pharmaceuticals?" Garrett asked as we pulled up in front of Cullen Investigations.

"It wouldn't surprise me," I replied.

"I guess not," Garrett chuckled, "Though I wouldn't be very surprised if she ended up killing her client either."

"I can't believe someone can go through the stuff she went through and still come out of it with better mental health than she had before," I said. The story of Bella's fellow angel had knocked me over. I had seen some pretty disgusting stuff during the last couple of years but the thought that there were parents who willingly put their child through hell for the sake of religion made me sick.

"It makes you wonder what the other two went through," Garrett mused. I hadn't told him about Bella's past other than the fact that she was the previous chief's daughter.

"I think they are expecting us upstairs," I called out to the bored looking receptionist in the foyer.

"Then you'd better get your asses up those damn stairs don't you?" she growled.

Apparently not everyone enjoyed working for Carlisle.

We met a particularly angry looking Rosalie on our way up. She paused on the stairs when she spotted us, her scowl deepening the moment her eyes registered us.

Something must have gone wrong this morning.

"Bella is waiting for you in Bosley's office Edward," she said in a stern voice. "Garrett, you'd better come with me."

"Strange," Garrett muttered as he followed the blond amazon down the stairs.

Strange indeed.

Bella was the only one in the office. She had her back turned to me, staring out of the window seemingly lost in her own thoughts. She didn't even acknowledge me when I stepped into the room. There was something in her posture though, something ominous, something that set off every alarm my body could think of.

Did someone get hurt today?

Alice?

"How was your day?" I asked, wanting to break this horrible silence.

"Don't you know already?" she snarled.

"What is that supposed to mean," I asked, wondering what had caused this sudden change in behavior. Had I done something wrong this morning? I hoped she didn't resent me for my behavior. She seemed to have been pretty.....responsive at the time. Did she think we were moving to fast? Was this her way of slowing us down again?

"It's not like you don't have your ways of checking up on me," she spat, flinging a tiny black button at my head.

I didn't have to look at it to know what it was.

I had held it in my hand only a couple of days ago.

My every nightmare come true.

A piece of standard FBI monitoring equipment.

Serial number 06201901/17 checked out by special agent Edward Masen about ten days ago.

"Bella....I," I started. How was I supposed to explain this? How could I make her understand that I didn't bug her apartment out of malice or obsession but....love?

"Don't you speak to me," she snarled. "I trusted you. I let you into my home. Into my life," she panted, trying to catch her breath as her eyes continued to slowly stab the life out of me. "How could you?"

"I wanted to protect you," I pleaded. "Please understand...."

"I do understand," she said, laughing bitterly. "You made it perfectly clear to me when we were talking last night. The only thing that's important to you is your career. You wanted to go up on the food chain and you thought we were going to help you with that." She shook her head in disdain. "And to think I almost fell for it."

"It wasn't like that Bella!" I yelled. "You have to believe me. I did it only to protect you. When you left the club with that Black character I was worried sick. I kep thinking of the things he had done in the past and the things he could be doing to you right that moment. I had to think of a way to keep you safe and though it disgusted me this was the only way I could come up with....."

"YOU COULD HAVE JUST TALKED TO ME!" she screamed.

"And said what?" I argued. "Hey Bella I really like you. So much in fact that I planted microphones all over you apartment?"

"That would have been a start," she growled.

"I wanted to," I explained, "but I was afraid of how you would react."

"How did you think I would react?" she spat. "You broke into my house, listened in on every private conversation I had and what's even worse.....you didn't even have the guts or moral fiber to tell me once you found out you'd made a mistake."

"Bella...."

"What am I supposed to do Edward?" she asked, her eyes glistening with a mixture of rage and regret. "I can't just ignore the fact that it happened."

"Please," I pleaded. "I know I went too far but can we please just talk about this?"

"Not now," she sighed. "I'd like you to leave now."

"No," I heard Emmett's voice before I saw him and Rose standing in the doorway, both of them looking livid. "Edward is staying."

"WHAT?" Bella yelled, her rage returning with full force.

"You have a date with Jacob Black in two hours," Rose stated. "You have to go get ready while Emmett and Garrett will keep an eye on _that_." The way Rose looked at me made it very clear I didn't have to expect any interference on my behalf from her.

Ever.

I watched as Rose took Bella's hand and guided her towards the door. She never took her eyes away from her feet as she walked over to the office though I could hear her speak as she reached the door.

"You know.....," her voice sounded heartbreakingly shaky, "I might have understood what you did and why you did it....if only you would have had the decency to tell me about it last night."

She could not have delivered a blow that would have hurt more. I knew she was right. I should have never installed the damn stuff in their apartment in the first place but I should have at least had the guts to admit it yesterday.

Right now the only thing I could hope for was that she would be safe and that maybe some day she would find it in her heart to forgive me. Even though I didn't deserve it.

For now I knew I should give her space to think and decide, even though the fact that she was out there, deciding whether or not she ever wanted to see me again, was enough to make me feel physically ill.

I didn't see the balled fist coming at me right until the moment it connected with my face. "Bastard," I heard Emmett's voice growl as I gripped the edge of the desk to keep me from falling.

The physical pain was a refreshing feeling. It silenced my thoughts for the smallest of moments.

I deserved it.

I deserved to be in a lot more pain that I was in right now.

"If you only knew how much of a bastard you really are you would have asked me to punch you into a coma," he snarled.

"Believe me, I know."

"Do you?" he spat. "Do you know how happy Bella was that she had finally found a decent guy after falling for the charms of bad guys and idiots so often it wasn't even funny anymore? That girl has had her poor heart crushed so often I'm amazed she even has a grain of love left to give but still she gave her heart to you and instead of treasuring it you crushed it just like the rest of those morons."

"I did something horrible," I explained. "But all I wanted was to protect her."

"She doesn't need protection!" Emmett yelled. "She just needs to be loved!"

"Do you even know how fucking wrong you are?" Garrett yelled, taking over from Emmett who looked like he was about to burst a vein. "If they report our asses for this it would screw up the entire investigation. And for what? A girl? Hell, come to think of it, I'm this close to reporting you myself!"

"Do what you have to," I sighed. None of it mattered anymore.

"Just give me one good reason Masen," he pleaded. "One reason, apart from the obvious, that would justify your behavior."

"I saw her with that guy," I argued. "With Jacob. I knew that could only mean she was getting herself into trouble. I didn't know she had a reason for her behavior. Not yet anyway. What should I have done? Should I have just let her walk into his miserable life? I had to protect her."

"You could have tried talking to her?" he spat. "I don't claim to be an expect on wooing women but even I know talking and not stalking is the the way to a woman's heart."

"I KNOW RIGHT?" I yelled. "I know I did the wrong thing and that I would be fucking lucky if Bella ever spoke to me again. I know all of that."

"They why did you do it?" Emmett asked, sounding frighteningly calm.

"Because I love her," I replied, "and love is irrational. It makes you do all kinds of stupid things. Not that that changes the fact that what I did was particularly stupid."

"You're right about that," Emmett sighed, leaning backward in his chair. "I do hope Bella won't be too distracted by it tonight."

"Yeah, what exactly is going on?" Garrett asked.

"One of the terms Jacob Black dictated was a date with the lovely Bella," Emmett explained. "She's meeting him for dinner tonight."

"She's going in there alone?" I asked.

"Of course not," Emmett growled. "What the hell do you take me for? Rose is going with her."

"What is the plan?"

"Bella is going in alone with Rose waiting outside in her car. They can keep in touch through their communication sets and Bella will in no way leave the place without notifying Rose. When dinner is over the girls will rendez vous at the apartment and head over here for debriefing."

"And what are we supposed to do?" Garrett asked.

"You mean apart from keeping Zorro here from screwing things up?" Emmett grinned, nodding his head towards me. "We just sit back and wait for the girls to do their work. It's the story of my life."

"Really? We're just supposed to wait by the phone?"

"Yep," Emmett chuckled. "At least I keep a good selection of DVD's just for occasions such as these."

"I can't believe we're just supposed to sit here," I said, unable to keep my annoyance in check. Bella was out there, virtually unprotected, with a known criminal ans all I was supposed to do was sit back and watch James Bond?

No way.

"Look dude," he said, pushing me back in my seat. "I've got two of my girls out on very dangerous missions plus I have to worry about keeping Miss America happy and satisfied so she won't leave me but do you see me fussing about like a fucking bride on her wedding day? Hell no!"

So we waited and watched James Bond.

Evey now and then Rosalie would call and give us a quick briefing of what happened but apparently the night was going by pretty uneventfully. Bella and Jacob just talked and appeared to be having a good time.

This was good, right? It meant Bella was safe.

But then why did it make me feel more nervous and furious with every moment that passed.

Of course I knew the answer.

Jealousy.

Fear.

I had screwed up and now maybe Jacob Black would be reaping the benefits of that.

"Houston we've got a problem," Rose announced as she called in a good four hours into the date. She sounded pretty agitated. "I just lost radio contact with Bella."

"What's going on?"Emmett demanded.

"I don't know," Rose replied. "I'm still right behind her but for some reason her bug went dead, just like at the club."

"Do you think something is up?" Emmett asked, glaring at me to keep me from intervening.

"Shit!"

"What happened?"

"She changed lanes all of a sudden and turned off the main road at the last notice. I think I lost them," Rose growled. "Can you get a location?"

Emmett as typing away furiously on his computer, a map of the city with two blinking spots appearing on the screen.

"They've stopped in front of a building. 1220 Dupont Drive. Can you get there?"

"Of course I can," Rose snarled. "I'm heading over there right this moment."

Then there was silence.

* * *

_**- Insert evil snicker -**_

_**What do you think happened to Bella? Technical malfunction? Evil criminal mastermind out to get her? **_

_**There was more to Bella's reaction than met the eye. More about that will be explained in the next chapter (Bella's POV).**_

_**Please review. It makes me happy after spending half my day bored out of my skull being second examiner for the senior class' oral examinations. **_


	18. Saturday Night

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

* * *

**Saturday night.**

_**(Bella Swan)**_

I slammed the door to my bedroom shut and flung myself onto the bed, the mattress muffling my scream as I let out every bit of frustration that had been building since this morning.

A lot of girls in my position would probably have cried right now but I didn't I was too angry to cry.

Angry with Edward for breaking into my apartment and violating my privacy and trust in the most cruel way possible. All because he wanted to protect me.

What the fuck was up with that?

I thought I had made it very clear from the start that I didn't need protecting. I was a big girl, I could handle myself.

The fact that he didn't tell me made matters worse. If had had just come out and admitted it to me yesterday or even this morning I think I might even have understood what he did. I mean...I knew how he might have suspected me of mingling with the wrong crowd or might have worried about my wellbeing but from the moment he found out the truth he should have told me.

"I guess this proofs there's no such thing as a decent guy," I whispered to my mattress. "Serves me right for being a naive little girl guide."

"You know," Rose's voice sounded from the door opening. "Talking to yourself is the first sign of insanity...."

"Shut up," I growled. I knew I really should have locked the door but with Alice not being home I didn't think there would be a risk of someone wanting to do the girl talk thing. Rose usually ran a mile the minute someone started spilling their guts.

"No you shut up," Rose ordered in a stern voice. Perhaps she might not be here to comfort me after all. "Bella....don't you think you're overreacting just a teeny tiny bit?"

"Rosalie Lillian Hale!" I yelled, not believing my ears. "Are you actually defending the son of a bitch?"

"Come on Bella!" she laughed. "You have to admit that it is kind of cute, in a fucked up sort of way. After all.....the guy must really care for you if he's willing to risk his job to protect you."

"So you think all of this is okay?" I quipped.

"I'm not saying I don't want to kick the guy in the balls for listening in on my private conversations....." she said, rolling her eyes. "But I think that, compared to the losers you used to date, it's quite refreshing to see you involved with a guy who actually cares for your wellbeing."

"We are not involved," I growled. "Not after what he did."

"I think you might want to reconsider that babes," she sighed, picking at the sleeves of her sweater. "You'll be hard pressed to find another guy like that one."

"There's plenty of other stalkers in the sea," I growled, knowing there was truth in what she was saying.

Even though I hated Edward with every fiber of my being right now, I couldn't escape the fact that every time I thought about him – which was pretty much all the time – my heartbeat would pick up and I would feel that familiar heat starting to rise in my abdomen.

The moments we had spend, only a couple of hours ago, in the shower ranked amongst the best in my life. I never imagined I could meet a man who would make me feel that good just by washing my hair. It had been like my whole body had been tingling with pleasure, every cell in my body reaching out to him.

I had been scared to death when I walked into that shower. The fact that I, plain old Isabella Swan, would find myself naked opposite that Greek god of a man was enough to make me want to run for the nearest exit.

Strangely enough the moment he stepped into the shower with me all my fears and doubts vanished. It was like he knew just what to do and what to say to make me feel completely comfortable, just like he knew exactly what to do and what to say to turn my whole body into mush.

I thought I had finally found the one, a decent guy who was completely gorgeous to boot. I could already see myself retiring to suburbia with 2,5 child and a golden retriever.

That was....until I had found out he was just another asshole.

"Come off it Bella," Rose growled, interrupting my quiet rant. "You know you like him, even if he is flawed. There's no such thing as the perfect guy. Just be glad you found someone who comes as close as you can get to it before you ran into someone who was really ugly on the inside, like I did."

"So I should just settle for agent Stalkward?' I huffed.

"Yes," she said sternly, pulling a comb through my hair as she started to get me ready for my date tonight. "You know you like him Bella. Hell....you may even be in love with him for all I've seen. I know all this stuff is scary and you'd much rather do the easy thing and get out while you can but sometimes you just have to take the plunge."

"Is that what you think this is?" I laughed incredulously, "me running for the hills because I can't handle being in love?" What kind of bullish was that?

"Isn't it?" Rose smirked.

"No!" I yelled, wincing as she ran the comb over my scalp a little too roughly. "I'm not afraid of being in love. Hell, I was even naming our imaginary children for God's sake."

"There's a difference between fantasy and reality sweetheart," Rose chuckled. "Fantasy Bella may have already been elbow deep in baby poop but Reality Bella sure as hell wasn't. Believe me, I know the signs when I see them."

I thought about what Rose had said, looking at things from her perspective.

Sure, Edward had been way out of line when he broke into my apartment and planted microphones all over the place. There was nothing that could have been said in defense of that other than that he did it out of some sort of misplaced protectiveness.

"_I'm feeling very protective of you."_ I could hear him say those words in my head. Had he been referring to this when he spoke them?

Did he really just do it because he cared for me?

Did he really not tell me about it because he was ashamed and afraid of how I was going to react?

I thought back on how he had looked earlier today in Bosley's office. He had looked....deflated, defeated. Like someone had just kicked every last bit of life out of him.

Perhaps I had been overreacting.

The thought shocked me as it entered my head.

Back the truck up! Had I really been afraid of falling in love?

Why?

I had been so ready to find Mr. Right for so long now....it just didn't make sense for me to be scared now that he was within arms reach.

I felt so comfortable around Edward. Why did that make me afraid?

Because I had never felt like that before.

Because I was afraid of screwing things up.

Because the people whom I really loved always ended up leaving me in the end.

"Oh my God," I muttered, incredulously.

"What is it Bella?" Rose asked, sticking her head out of my closet where she was fishing for things for me to wear tonight.

"You were right," I mused.

"I have been known to be on occasion," she grinned, holding out something that was probably meant to be a dress.

"No dresses or skirts," I said absentmindedly. "How am I going to fix this?"

"Easy enough," she chuckled, throwing a pair of black dress pants and a matching jacket in my direction. "Just show up at his hotel room with a nice pink bow wrapped around your naked body. He's sure to forgive you then."

"I think I prefer Alice's pep talks if you don't mind," I huffed.

"Well, too bad Alice ain't here right now," Rose snickered. "You'll have to make do with me."

If things had gone according to plan Alice was currently somewhere downtown, playing the part of Jasper Whitlock's new assistant. Much to her own chagrin.

Whitlock had agreed to go along with just about everything we had proposed with a speed and eagerness that had even surprised Carlisle. Though he had been very reluctant to discuss anything over the phone I had a feeling Whitlock might have known something was up even before we had contacted him.

If that were true then Alice may have to tread very carefully once she was undercover. After all....if we were able to put one of ours undercover at Whitlock Pharmaceuticals, who was to say James Midnight may not have done the same?

"You're doing okay though," I shrugged.

"I'll take that as a compliment," Rose snickered.

"What happened to the silent retreat tactic?" I laughed.

"I figured that with Alice gone you'd probably just follow me," Rose shrugged. "And hey......I'm going through all of this shit myself right now so it felt kind of good having someone to talk to about it."

"How are things going between Bosley and you?" I asked.

"Great," she almost sang, her face getting that distant hazy expression that people get when they think about their loved ones. "He knows just what to say and do to make me feel right. Not that it doesn't scare the crap out of me though.....Being with him just feels......."

"Natural?" I offered.

"Yeah," she smiled.

"I know how you feel."

"Aren't we a bunch of lovesick idiots?" Rose snickered. "You'd better get dressed. We need to discus tactics before you have to leave."

"Kay," I sighed, picking up the clothes that Rose had selected.

Because Jacob had selected one of those tragically hip places for our dates where you had cues standing in front of the door and waiting staff who thought the sun shone out of their asses I couldn't very well turn up in my jeans and t-shirt.

Luckily with people like Alice and Rose around you never had to wonder what to wear. Alice had left my closet well stocked and Rose had assigned herself on dressing duty in the pixie's absence. Not that I wouldn't like picking out my own clothes for a change but hey....they had kind of a feel for it.

Rose had picked a nice back pants suit with a metallic silver tank top underneath for the evening. The pants were form fitting but made with a stretchy fabric that would still allow me to kick ass if necessary without bursting the seem. I had found there was nothing as embarrassing as mooning the good people of Forks after you had just tried to save their life.

I smiled when I saw the shoes she had selected. It was obvious Rose expected trouble tonight or she would have pulled out a pair of ridiculously overpriced killer heals, not my steel capped Docs.

Killer heals were well enough when you wanted to flat line a guys brain but if you really wanted to get them where it hurt the most – and you hadn't developed a special kick, like Rose, that could land the heel of your shoes in a man's scrotum with an almost military precision – a pair of sturdy boots where a better option.

"You think Black is going to cause trouble tonight?' I asked as I stepped into the living room.

"It's better to be safe than sorry," Rose shrugged. "What are your feelings on the guy?"

I thought about it, my feelings not really making sense to me right now. "I don't know," I mused. "He gives off this very....offhand vibe to me but I don't know if that is because I know what he has done in the past or because he's just a two faced son of a bitch after all."

"In my opinion there's no such thing as a reformed criminal," Rose said. "At least....not when it comes to sick bastards like those dogs."

"You don't think he's legit?"

"It just doesn't make any sense to me that someone like him would suddenly see the error of his ways and want out," Rose clarifies. "It's like a vampire getting remorseful and becoming a vegetarian. Not going to happen."

"But the information he gave us all checked out," I countered. "It would be stupid for him to give up everything – names, suppliers, weapons – if he planned on continuing the business."

"That's why you have a very important task to fulfill tonight,' Rose sighed. "We have to find out what the deal is with this guy before we release him back into society. It's not like the police will get anywhere with him. They are still way to busy congratulating themselves on getting the rest of that miserable lot behind bars."

"You're starting to sound awfully Alicy tonight," I grinned

"I know," she growled, rolling her eyes. "Let's just get the fuck out of here before I start hugging people."

We drove to the restaurant in Rose's car as part of our tactic. We didn't actually think Jacob would give all of his secrets away over roast beef and a nice Cabernet. If we wanted to get him to talk we'd have to find a way to get him alone and what better way than to drive your date home for the evening?

I wondered what Edward was thinking as we made our way downtown. Was there a way to fix all of this?What would I say when I saw him again?

"Please stop," Rose growled. "I get a migraine just from having to be in the same car with you. Please give your poor brain a rest for the night. You can think about Morgue Guy and the hot passionate makeup sex you're going to have after you've straightened things out after your date. Right now I need you to focus and have fun."

"Okay," I snorted.

"Really Bella," Rose huffed. "Can't just you just have good simple fun for one night in your life?Why do you always have to over think everything?"

"It's not like I can help it," I growled. "My brain kind of has a mind of its own."

"Then tell it to shut the fuck up and focus on your date," Rose ordered. "Thinking about Morgue Guy will only screw things up. Now, do you have everything?"

"Yes mom," I snorted.

"Then you're good to go sweets," Rose chuckled, swatting my behind as I got out of the car. "Remember. I've got your back."

Jacob was already waiting for me, all smiles and self confident charm, when I got to the restaurant. He escorted me in, past the line of people looking pissed off because we could go straight through, and pulled out my chair for me as we reached our table.

We chatted all the way through dinner, talking about our childhoods during entrées, our parents during the main course and current events while munching down on our deserts.

He was nice. He looked nice. He acted nice. Hell, he even smelled nice.

But still there was something off about him.

Something that gave me the distinct impression he was more of a Wickham than a Rochester.

Underneath that polished exterior which he kept so firmly in place lay a very dark and very dangerous creature, just waiting for the thing to set him off. The thing that just bugged me about all of this was that I didn't know for certain which side of him was in control.

Well....there was only one way to find out.

"So why are you doing this?" I asked as we polished off our deserts.

"Doing what?" he asked, no doubt feigning ignorance.

"Dishing out the secrets of your trade," I explained.

"How very girl guide of you," Jacob snorted.

"Suit yourself," I grumbled, shrugging my shoulders, "I just wondered about that, considering The Pack is supposed to be really close and all."

"You know nothing girl guide," Jacob snorted, munching on his last spoonful of desert.

"That's why I asked," I retorted.

"I said before, there are others like me," Jacob shrugged. "Others who were sad to see the old days go."

"Is that supposed to clarify things?"

"Just let me talk, will ya?" Jacob spat back.

"Okay," I shrugged. "I didn't know you'd go all prissy on me."

"It started back at the rez," Jacob explained, ignoring my last remark. "I don't know if you've ever been there but it can be pretty boring, especially for a teenage boy."

I nodded, trying to encourage him.

"Anyway," he shrugged. "I don't know when it all started but one day Sam and a couple of his buddies, all older than me, made this deal with a bunch of city kids about providing them with booze and cigarettes. Sam must have known someone who could deliver the goods because he was nowhere near old enough back then." Jacob shrugged, downplaying the whole thing. "It turned out there was a huge demand for the stuff and soon the three of them were supplying most of Forks' highschool kids with their contraband and were in need of more members for their little setup.

"So they came to you?'

"Yeah, and my dad chased him out of the house with his hunting rifle," Jacob chuckled. "He told me to get the hell away from that scum. He's a good man. I wish I could be more like him."

"Then how did you end up in The Pack?"

"They are kind of hard to resist," he shrugged, "especially when all your friends get sucked in and the already boring place gets even more boring." He took a breath and looked out of the window with a smug look. "They had just changed to the darker stuff when I joined. Turned out I was pretty damn good at dealing with their big town suppliers."

"Then why do you want out?"

"As I said.....things changed," he growled, but it wasn't at me. "It all started when Sam suddenly decided he wasn't in love with Leah anymore and moved on to Emily, Leah's fucked up cousin who was visiting from Seattle. Things got pretty ugly back then. I mean, Leah may have been a girl and we may only have been tolerating her because she was Sam's girl but she was also one of us....and you don't fuck with people in your own circle." He paused again, taking a few deep breaths before he continued, his voice more controlled again. "Sam wanted more and more and more and we had to supply him with it. He has a way of screwing with people's brains, making them believe they are fucking untouchable or something. Anyway.....He was starting to get more cocky and dangerous by the day and we were drawing way too much attention on ourselves."

He was silent for a couple of moments. "The turning point for me was when he recruited Seth."

"Seth?" I asked, remembering the kind gangly boy from the club.

"Seth is Leah's little brother."

"Leah, the girl he left for Emily?"

"Yep," he sighed. "After Sam left her Leah wanted out and really, who could blame her?" He looked up at me to see if I agreed. "Sam saw that and so he turned his attention to Seth. He knew the little bugger had been dying to join us for years - he had been idolizing the shit out of us – and now, when he should be leaving the whole family the fuck alone, Sam ask him to join us. Of course Seth jumped at the opportunity even though most of us – me included – protested. Sam pushed his decision through in spite of that and now Leah has to stay in make sure her little brother doesn't get himself killed."

"So the other two witnesses you mentioned were Leah and Seth?" I asked.

"Seth soon found out there was nothing romantic about dealing drugs and wanted out. He never realized that once you're in, you're in for life," Jacob snarled.

"That's fucked up!" I sighed.

"It is," Jacob grumbled. "but I'm kind of done being all Oprah touchy feely for today so let's talk about something else." He looked at me, his deep brown eyes shimmering with mischief. "Let's talk about you."

"What do you want to know?" I shrugged, nipping from my wine.

"What brings a girl like you to hunt down dangerous criminals like me?"

"A girl like me?" I chuckled. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"No offense, but you don't look all that tough to me," he laughed. "When I first saw you I had you pegged as more of an indoors kind of girl. Not someone who spends her nights staking out in front of some unsuspecting badguy's house."

"I guess you know all about that," I muttered, remembering what had happened to Victoria.

"I never claimed to be one of the good guys," he shrugged. The fact that someone could act so casual about an action that nearly ended someone's life made me shudder with disgust.

"How can you act like that?" I argued. I knew it probably wasn't very smart of me to be asking these kind of questions at this time but to hell with it. "It's a human life we are talking about here!"

"You're such a hypocrite," Jacob replied with a dark chuckle. "You and the rest of the doogooder squad pretty much let the Volturi run rampage all over town without putting a thing in their way but as soon as _we_ do something we have the police breathing down our fucking necks."

"And that makes killing people justifiable?" I retorted.

"It's a dog eat dog world," he chuckled. "We sometimes have to resort to methods that are a bit....brutal to consolidate out position in this tow." He took a sip of his beer before continuing. "You should be thankful we did. If we didn't take out the trash every now and then you and those hypocrites over at the police station would have had their hands full with gang wars and shady drug dealers."

"So we should be thanking you for doing that for us?" I snorted. "That's fucking bullshit and you know it."

"I know drugs are bad," he said, looking straight at me. "I know the people in the trade are even fucking worse – that's why I'm getting out in the first place – but what the hell was I supposed to do? Become a mechanic and scrape a living at the reservation?"

"That would have been a start...."

"It's not for me," he said, shaking his head. "I wanted to be someone, to get somewhere in life."

"And you thought becoming a drug dealer was going to get you there?"

"It was the only way out of La Push I saw," he shrugged. "I know now that there are other ways but I was young and impressionable."

"So Sam got to you at exactly the right – or wrong – moment."

"Yes," he sighed as the waitress brought him our check. "You could say it like that."

"It still doesn't make it alright to murder people," I quipped, scrunching my eyes into slits.

"As I said......it kind of goes with the territory," he shrugged casually. "I don't exactly like it but that doesn't mean I don't do what needs to be done."

"You don't need to kill people."

"Whatever," he sighed. "Try living my life – or my former life – for a year and see how you think of it then."

"We'd best get moving," I said, quickly changing the subject. "Our waitress has been eying us ever since you finished eating. I think they need the table."

"I don't take orders from the waiting staff," Jacob growled, glaring at the poor woman who was only doing her job. It made me remember what Alice and Rose had said about the members of The Pack being unstable and unpredictable.

"I want to get home anyway," I shrugged, rising from my seat before the guy started assaulting the waiting staff.

"I'll drive you," he shrugged, steering me in the direction of his black GTO. as we walked out of the restaurant. I had to admit it. Even though the guy wasn't exactly healthy in the brain department, he sure knew about cars.

"No thanks," I said, trying to shake his hand from my shoulder. "My friend will be here in no time. She's expecting a call from me."

"Then call her to say I'm driving you home," he said persistently, tightening his hold on my shoulder. "Why let her go through the hassle of having to pick you up when I can drop you off at your place just the same?"

I got the distinct impression he didn't require an answer.

"What," he chuckled. "You're not saying you're afraid of me?"

I struggled to keep a smug smile from appearing on my face. Bella Swan didn't do fear. I had this whole matter under control, the pieces on the chess board moving just the way I had anticipated.

Be afraid motherfucker.

Be very afraid.

"You can drop me off on the corner of Madison and Main." I shrugged, walking to the GTO on my own.

"_What the fuck are you doing?"_ Rose hissed furiously. _"We have enough on him as it is. You're not getting into a car with that piece of crap, are you? What if he has a piece stashed in there?" _

"Back off Rose," I whispered, hiding my face in the collar of my jacket. "I've got this. Just follow us and don't leave too big a gap."

"_You know you're only doing this because he challenged you,"_ Rose hissed. _"For God's sake!" _

"Back off Rose," I half growled.

"What?" Jacob asked, as he slid into the driver's seat.

"Nothing," I shrugged, trying to sound casual. "I almost tripped, that's all."

"Right."

Fortunately Rose stopped yelling at me as soon as I was in the car. I knew these earpieces were only meant so that we could be safe and keep in touch but I was starting to get a migraine from having people yammering in my ear all the time.

As if I didn't have enough personal stuff to make my poor brain spin around, jump up and down and blow raspberries at me.

My brain had been crowded even before my love life turned into an episode of some kind of fucked up soap opera, now it felt like there was a damn nuclear explosion going on in there, complete with mushroom cloud and everything.

First there had been the worries over my dad. He had told me himself he was starting to get too old for the kind of work he did. What would come of him when he lost his job? I didn't think there was a really big demand for retired bounty hunters.

Then there was Alistair Trevelyan. The two faced fucker responsible for all of the shit I found myself in. I had tried to get in touch with Angela over the matter but she had been too busy chasing after The Pack to see me.

The fact that I had to just stand by and watch th people responsible for ruining my dad's life – my life – still made me sick, even though work kept me from thinking too much about it.

I had to do something and I had to do it soon. We couldn't just risk Trevelyan and the Volturi finding out their secret was out in the open. They would destroy every scarp of evidence before we could even utter the words 'search warrant'. No. We had to act and we had to act soon.

I knew talking to Carlisle wouldn't get me anywhere. He had made it pretty clear the situation with James had priority for now and he would never sanction a risky covert operation at Volturi Headquarters right now.

No, I had to do this thing on the sly.

Alone.

"Did you have anything to say to Blondie before we ditch her?" Jacobs voice asked, shaking me out of my thoughts once again.

My mind had picked up on the change in his tone and attitude even before it registered what he was saying.

"What do you mean?"" I asked, sticking to the time honored routine of playing dumb.

"The blond bimbo, trailing us," Jacob spat, never taking his eyes off the road. "I know she is with you."

"I still don't know what the hell you're talking about!" I said, laughing nervously as I stole a quick glance at one of the side mirrors.

Rosalie wasn't following too closely. In fact....she was rather far behind us at the moment. How the fuck did this guy know?

"Well if you don't know her then I guess you don't have any final remarks to pass along to her," Jacob chuckled. "Unless you want her to pass a message along to your dad."

"Why would I want to do that?" I replied, trying to buy time.

I knew all too well what he was implying and why.

He was planning to kill me.

Boy did this guy pick the wrong time to do that!

I knew I should have felt scared or at least intimidated or something, being in a car with a known killer who had set his cap at you, but somehow I couldn't find it in myself to care. All I felt was a seething rage, probably the build up of all the pent up anger I had felt throughout the day.

And right now it was all pointed at the miserable creature sitting next to me.

"Don't think you can warn her," he said, a smug grin plastered on his face. "I know all about your ways of keeping in touch during your little adventures."

"So I guess that night at the club my earpiece wasn't just malfunctioning," I shrugged, unsuccessfully trying to open the door. It was locked, as I suspected. Jacob Black might have been a sick motherfucker but he knew what he was doing.

"Nope," he chuckled, popping the 'p'. "That was all me."

"How did you do it?" I asked, holding on to the door as Jacob made an impossibly sharp turn at high speed, taking us off the main road and into a side street. I glanced over to my shoulder to see his move had caused Rose to loose our tail.

I knew the street. It was mainly filled with office buildings, a lot of them empty. It was a safe guess that the whole street would probably be deserted.

"Are you trying to stall?" he laughed incredulously.

"No, I just want to know how you did it."

Technology," he shrugged, having parked the car. "Did you really think that little midget of yours is the only one who can fabricate a high tech piece of equipment? Now get out of the damn car."

Seriously.

Was this guy really ordering me about? I thought he was supposed to be the dog? And then insulting y friends as well? His ass was mine!

"Excuse me?" I huffed. If the fucker had any sense in that thick skull of it he would sense this was not the time to mess with me and run and hide.

"I said out, bitch," he snapped, getting out of the car and walking over to my side.

"You really shouldn't have said that," I snarled, blind rage still keeping me from feeling any fear. "You really. Should not. Have said. That."

"And what are you going to do," he chuckled. "I know you're unarmed Bella."

"Really?" I asked, unable to hide my amusement. I had found that a girl wearing steel capped army boots was never unarmed. Especially not when face to face with a member of the opposite sex.

"Walk," he growled, as I felt something hard press into my lower back. The coward had a gun.

"So I guess this means you're not a born again law abiding citizen after all," I remarked as he guided me into an empty office building.

"Please," he said, rolling his eyes. "Like I'd ever want to be a boring fuck in the suburbs!"

"Then why did you give away your dealers?" I asked. I had learned from Angela that all the information Jacob had given us was legit. He had really given away the secrets of his trade. How was he supposed to continue it now?

"I've found new ones," he said callously. "Better ones. Those amateurs we were dealing with only slowed us down. Now I'm going to be playing with the big boys."

"And what about Seth and Leah?" I wondered.

"They will play along of they know what's good for them."

"What? Are you going to kill them too if they don't?"

"It won't come to that," he said selfassuredly, turning towards me as we neared the end of the long corridor. "I can be certain of their loyalty."

It was the moment I had been waiting for. With the gun pointing away from my body for a moment I took action, smashing my fist into his face.

It hurt like a son of a bitch but somehow I was the only one feeling pain.

"Bitch!" he growled, rubbing his nose, "you tried to hit me!" He retaliated immediately, the hand holding the gun flying up to hit me in the face. It was a good thing angel boot camp had told me to always think one step ahead because otherwise I would have been seeing stars right now.

Unfortunately my balance issues decided to play up right when I was stepping backwards to evade his punch, making me fall flat on my ass with my back against the wall, just about the most vulnerable position a girl could fine herself in.

Jacob leered over me with a menacing look on his face. "Did you really think you could escape me?" he laughed. "Come on, as if you could ever outrun me." His face had long ago lost every trace of kindness. Right now it was the face of the real Jacob Black. And black it was......

It was a good thing Jacob was acting like the average criminal motherfucker I met in this line of business because if he hadn't done the whole 'smug bastard speech thing' I wouldn't have had the time to shift into position, kicking out my legs in front of me and locking them around his legs, sending him crashing onto his back.

"I may not be able to outrun you," I snarled, scrambling to my feet again, "but I sure as hell can outsmart you, you piece of shit."

We both jumped up from the floor at about the same time both of us assuming fighting stances the moment our feet were underneath our bodies again. The only difference was that he was holding a gun and I wasn't.

"Come to daddy," he sang, grinning wickedly at me as he brandished his gun.

"If you want me, come and claim me," I barked, my right leg flying up in a high kick which hit his hand, sending the gun flying into the corridor behind him.

"Fuck you bitch!" he yelled, his eyes livid as he held onto his wrist.

While he was temporarily distracted by the pain I looked around me in search of an exit. Not that I didn't want to teach the motherfucker a lesson but with him having the upper hand in the height and muscle department, not to mention the fact that there was a gun involved, it would be better to retreat. Unfortunately the only way out of this damn corridor was behind the son of a bitch in front of me.

I felt the punch to my midriff before my eyes had registered the fist coming at me. I tried to fight the reflexes which made my body bend over and my hands fold around my torso as I winced in pain. I knew that if I did that he would have me where he wanted me and this time he wouldn't let me take advantage of my position.

From the corner of my eyes I saw him move back, ducking to the ground as he tried to pick up his gun. I couldn't let him do that. I could fight him off for a while, hoping Rose would get here in time, as long as we were both unarmed but I wouldn't stand a chance if he had a gun.

I ran over to him, ignoring the sharp pain in my ribs as I leaped onto his back and sunk my teeth in his neck. The moment he felt my teeth tearing at his flesh he yelled out in pain, broadening his shoulders as his hands started punching around him, trying to get me off his back.

I managed to hold on for quite some time as Jacobs erratic movements took us further and further away from the gun, but when he hit me in the same place his fist had connected with me earlier I had to let go, crying out at the pain shooting through my body.

"Fucking whore," he yelled clutching his bleeding neck. "You fucking bit me!" The distraction my bite mark had caused gave me a little window of opportunity to make my next move. Making the most of my current firm stance and the outfit I was in I kicked my leg up in the general direction of his groin, praying he wouldn't move or that my legs were too short.

Fortunately the gods seemed to favor me at the moment because I hit my mark. Perfectly.

His face contorted with pain the moment my Docs came into contact with his package and I could see his body taking over. His hands reaching for his painful groin and he sank to his knees, almost toppling over in pain.

I guess a thank you to Rose for dragging me out to the gym with her was in order as soon as I got back.

"Who's you daddy now, asshole?" I snarled as I reached into the pocket of my jacket, pulling out one of the cable ties I always kept in there for situations such as these.

"You may think you're really smart and tough right now," the asshole chuckled as I tied his feet together as well just to be on the safe side, "but we both know I'll be walking out of that police station before the sun comes up."

"And why is that?" I asked, amused by his misplaced confidence.

"Let's just say the DA will be left empty handed in operation 'dog catcher' if I get locked away right now," he chuckled. "I don't know what they will value more....the reputation of a corrupt cop's daughter or getting The Pack behind bars."

The red haze in front of my eyes took over again and I hit him, my fist slamming down on his face with all the force I could muster.

I might not have been able to really hurt him but it sure as hell made me feel better.

Painful.

But better none the less.

"That's for calling my dad corrupt," I yelled. "And just so you know.....you may have been able to knock out our wires but what about good old fashioned technology?" I pulled my own decrepit little tape recorder out of the pocket of my pants, rewinding the tape before pressing play.

"_Then why did you give away your dealers?" _

"_I've found new ones, better ones. Those amateurs we were dealing with only slowed us down. Now I'm going to be playing with the big boys." _

"_And what about Seth and Leah?" _

"_They will play along of they know what's good for them." _

"I guess you aren't so smart after all," I spat, pulling my phone out of my jacket pocket to call Rose.

"Fucking bitch," he spat, glaring at me with a venom that made me take an extra step away from him. Just in case.

"Bella! Are you okay?" Rose's voice echoed through the building as she came running into the corridor.

"I'm fine Rosey," I laughed, the severity of the situation only just registering in my brain. "Did you call the cops?"

"On their way," she grinned, before turning her attention to Jacob who was lying at our feet, glaring at the two of us. "Your buddies are just going to looooooove seeing you again. I know it."

"Bitch," he growled, trying to break free from his restraints.

"I think you may become that as well," she laughed, producing a bar of dark chocolate from the pocket of her coat.

"Want some?" she asked, offering the package ton me.

"Thanks!" I said, wincing slightly as I reached over to break a piece of chocolate from the bar. "I'm okay," I reassure her. "The motherfucker punches like a girl."

"Thought so," Rose laughed as we heard the sound of sirens approaching rapidly.

* * *

_**I hope you liked the fight, writing it has been a bitch. I had about five different versions of it floating around but when I was editing I liked none of them and rewrote the whole damn thing, turning it from a one page bitch fight into a five page brawl.**_

_**For all those of you who hate me right now because I made Sam and Emily into evil people: have patience. We've only heard Jake's version of the story and he has proven himself to be less than trustworthy.**_

_**For all of you who hate me for making Jacob evil: it had to be done. Someone has to be the bad guy (or in this case...the worst guy) and I like Sam better.**_

_**Next up: Alice's first day as Jasper Whitlock's PA. I'll be posting a teaesr of the chapter (plus the title and chapter song) on the twilighted boards.**_

_**For now.....please review.**_


	19. I think I smell a rat

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

* * *

**I think I smell a rat.**

_**(Alice Brandon)**_

"Gooooooood morning!" I sang, trying to dispel my somewhat melancholy thoughts and the strong sense of foreboding that had been pestering me ever since I walked into the office. Something bad was going to happen but I didn't know what. Not yet anyway. "Alice Brandon goddess of all things speaking. How can I help you?"

"Alice........"

"Well helloooooo Bella," I was starting to get into my own self again. "How are you this morning?"

"Confused," she sighed and I noticed something in her voice. Something that shouldn't be there after spending the night in bed with the man of your dreams.

"What is it?" I asked. I sure hoped that guy had been treating her accordingly. Or he would have to deal with me.

"I found something at the apartment," she explained. "A microphone."

"What?" I yelled. "Where?"

"In the lampshade," Bella growled. "I accidentally knocked it over when I was cleaning up the mess in the living room and when I picked it up there the little black thing was."

"Can you spot a serial number?' I asked, knowing it was easy to track those kind of things.

"It's tiny but I think it says 06201901/17," she stated. "Can you track it?"

"Just give me a moment," I said. "I need to get my laptop started up before I can do anything. Why don't you head over here in the meantime? I should be able to give you the name of the son of a bitch who's listening in on us when you get here."

"Kay," she said before hanging up.

At least doing this took my mind of the other thing I would be doing today. Going undercover at Whitlock Pharmaceuticals.

I was still so angry with Carlisle for making me do this. I couldn't understand it, not even after Bella's pep talk. Yes, I was the best undercover agent we had and yes, doing this might help me work through some of my anger and pain. But why now?

Why couldn't I just go on living in denial? It was nice in denial. It had pretty colors and a nice smell. I didn't want to leave.

Ever.

But now I was forced to go to Confrontationville, a cold, hard place that probably smelled like a donkey's ass.

Fucking Whitlocks and their offspring.

When I walked into the office this morning everything had been arranged. Carlisle had somehow managed to get a hold of Jasper Whitlock before 8 AM and they had decided to let me go in undercover as his assistant. That way I could protect him and snoop around at the same time, my position giving me clearance to accompany him everywhere.

Oh joy.

I wondered why Carlisle had been so quick to believe Whitlock himself wasn't involved in all of this. I mean.....if anyone had motive and opportunity it was him. He owned a pharmaceutical company for God's sake!

I absentmindedly logged on to my laptop and made my way over to the FBI intraweb, my pride and joy. Not many hackers could say they had an eye and an ear in the FBI.

I had.

It made our job that much simpler to know if the Feds were involved in any case we were working at and what they were planning to do. It also made keeping track of Bella's new beau a lot easier.

I was so happy my best friends had both found someone and even though I didn't know Edward that well he seemed like a pretty decent guy to me, a worlds apart from the random losers she used to date before she met him. Hell, I would try to get along with him even for making Bella smile again. She had gone through so much in the last couple of years – loosing her mother and in a way her dad and seeing the whole future you had painted for yourself crumble to dust – and it had taken its toll on her as it would on anyone.

I could only imagine how hard it had to be for her to walk away from the Volturi case in favor of the virus-case we were working on right now. I don;t know if I would have been able to, had our roles been reversed......

I typed in the serial number Bella had given me. The FBI kept a pretty good register of the data of their over bugging devices and serial numbers of the microphones sold by some of the major manufacturers. There was as good a chance as any I could actually get a result.

"Well I'll be damned," I muttered as I saw serial number 06201901/17 appear on my screen. It was an FBI issue.

I clicked on the entry, wanting to find out more, and scrolled through the names and dates of the agents who had used this particular bug.

Then I saw the name.

At the bottom of the list.

The most recent entry.

Special Agent Edward Antony Masen.

Fuck.

"Did you find anything?" I almost jumped as I heard Bella's voice behind me.

"You might want to sit down for this," I sighed.

"What is it?" Bella asked, biting her lip.

"Look," I said, pointing at the screen.

"What does it mean?" she said, staring at the letters in front of her.

I had a feeling she wasn't talking about the information she had just received. That was pretty self explanatory.

"I don't know," I sighed. "I do think Morgue Guy has some explaining to do."

"So do I," she snapped, making me think she had come to a conclusion even in spite of that.

"Let him explain Bella," I warned. "Let's not jump to conclusions."

"Why not?" she growled, slamming her fist on the table. "I know pretty damn well what to think of this!"

"Bella," I sighed. "Don't do this. You're right to be angry with him for what he did but don't push him away before you know why he did it."

"Does it matter?" she cried. "He violated my trust Alice! Does me knowing why he did it make it any easier?"

Emmett walked into the office that moment, looking from me to Bella. "Your cab is here Alice," he said hesitantly, taking a little step back.

"Thanks Bosley," I sighed, hating myself from having to leave my best friend alone at a time like this.

"We will talk about this when I get back Bella," I said sternly. I wouldn't let her get away with pushing the people she loved away. Not even when those people turned out to be complete idiots with potentially scare overprotective tendencies.

"You can talk all you like Alice," she spat back, "it won't change a damn thing."

I sighed before walking out of the office, Emmett hot on my heals.

"What's going on with the squirt?" he asked as we made our way downstairs.

"Long story," I sighed. "She found out Edward bugged our apartment."

"Rotten bastard," Emmett growled.

"Yeah," I sighed. "Only.....this is the perfect opportunity for her to start pushing him away....."

"Que?" Emmett looked at me with a face that had question marks written all over it.

"It's what she does," I shrugged. "When people get too close, she pushes them away. It's why she dated all those losers in the past and it's why she always plays the part of the angry badger. She thinks she's poison."

"And how do you know that?" Emmett asked, helping me into my coat.

"You can't spend years in therapy without picking up on a few things," I grinned, inwardly rejoicing that my completely screwed up existence had at least lead to something positive. "It doesn't change the fact that Edward is a rotten bastard for doing what he did and deserves to have his balls crushed for it........"

"But you think Bella is going to overreact," Emmett interrupted. "And by the way...I will take care of that last bit."

"yes," I sighed. "And I don't think we can stop her."

"What do you want me to do?" he asked, opening the door of my cab to me.

"I'll call Rose and discuss this with her," I said. "In the meantime just be there for her. She won't bite."

"Okay," he said hesitantly. It was no secret that Emmett was slightly afraid of the angry-at-the-world version of Bella. We had even made jokes about it. Over the last few days we had finally gotten to see another version of Bella. The version that wasn't scary or hostile at all. The version that showed us the woman she could really be.

That was why I was so angry with Edward right now.

It was a good thing I wouldn't be there when the bastard showed up at the office because I didn't think he would survive a confrontation with me right now. Or he would have at least had his balls ripped off and I Bella might have plans for those even in spite of the current situation.

Why did he have to go and ruin every bit of progress he had made? Why did he have to make retreat Bella into her save and very hostile corner again?

Bastard.

I made a quick call to Rose, who was just wrapping up a routine stakeout in front of an office, and told her what had been going on and how she had to act. To say Rose was jumping for joy at the prospect of having to talk about feelings would be a lie, but the girl took it better than I thought.

"That'll be twenty dollars," the taxi driver announced, interrupting my silent rant.

I payed the guy and got out of the car as a bellhop opened the door for me. At least this Whitlock guy had the good sense to pick out the most decent hotel in town for his visit. I made my way over to the front desk and was told to take the elevator up to the penthouse suite.

I checked my appearance one last time in the glass walls that covered the elevator. I had gone with the flawless and professional look today, dressing in a simple black formfitting dress with a white collar and white cuffs to prevent it from getting boring. A pair of simple black Louboutin slingbacks and a white tote bag completed the look.

I smoothed the fabric, making sure there were no creases or other flaws that could embarrass me before exiting the elevator.

I could see they had set the whole place up as a sort of office away from the office. A woman who, by the looks of her, was probably the guy's secretary was sitting on the sofa in the living room of the suite, typing away furiously on her laptop.

"Alice Brandon to see Mr Whitlock," I announced as she looked up from my work.

"He's in the middle of a conference call, right now," she said, refocusing on her work. "If you'd like to take a seat? He knows you're here."

"Fine," I said, trying with all my might to stay polite.

Who the hell did this guy think I was? Some silly little bint whom he could just boss around?

I was here to save his fucking miserable ass and he told me to just take a seat and wait around for him to squeeze me into his busy schedule?

"I'm going to pop out to get some lunch," the secretary announced after I had been waiting for about half an hour. "Do you want me to get you anything?"

"No thanks," I growled.

"I'm sure he'll be finished soon," she said apologetically. "Please make yourself comfortable."

Easier said than done being in the same building as the offspring of the guy who used you as a lab rat.

"Thanks," I said. After all....it wasn't the girl's fault her boss was an evil bastard.

After about ten minutes the door the the room I had pegged to be the office finally opened and the bastard came out, looking all laid back and bohemian in his black suit pants and white shirt with the top buttons undone.

"You've kept me waiting, asshole," I snarled, getting up from the couch.

"I'm sorry ma'am," he replied in a slight southern drawl which, in any other circumstance, I would have found rather charming. "How can I help you?"

I had to admit the guy was pretty polite if anything. I had practically bitten his head off and he acted like I had done nothing but smile and wave.

"I'm Alice Brandon," I said, trying to ad as much civility to my tone as I could muster. "Carlisle Cullen send me."

"Ah yes," he nodded, a hint of mischief sparkling in his eyes, "the new assistant."

"Indeed."

"May I be so bold as to suggest that 'asshole' isn't the phrase commonly used for assistants to address their boss in?"

Smug, conceited bastard.

"I'm so not calling you 'sir' if that's what you're hinting at!" I spat back.

"Mr Whitlock will do," he grinned, guiding me into his office. "Now....what shall we do with you?"

I felt a cold shiver running down my spine remembering how his father had once uttered very similar words. It was the first time I saw him and he was talking about what torture he was going to submit me to.

"Are you alright?" Mr. Whitlock asked, looking genuinely concerned.

"Yes," I sighed, my voice sounding a little shaky. "It's just that someone spoke those words to me a long time ago...bad memories."

Why was I telling him this? It wasn't like he was going to commiserate with me or even feel sorry. It was safe to say this bastard didn't feel sorry for a simple thing his dad had done. Whatever he may have said in the media....if he had really been sorry he wouldn't have started a pharmaceutical company. It was an insult to everyone who suffered at the hands of his father.

It was an insult to me.

"I have to be at the hospital for a meeting in two hours," he said, shaking me out of my thoughts. "There are some things we need to discuss before that."

"Okay," I sighed, moving over to his desk and taking a seat.

We spend the next hour or so going over the stuff he was going to say at the hospital and the things he expected from me as his assistant. I found that he wasn't such a bad guy once you got past the whole psycho dad thing. He was professional and driven in his quest to develop medicine in the most ethical way possible.

"..........I just don't understand how all those big pharmaceutical companies can stand by and watch hundreds of people die of diseases they can easily cure if only they'd cut down on their prices," he growled, jumping up from his chair. "We have a responsibility to do something!"

"You can't rid the world disease all on your own," I said.

"No but I can at least try to make the quality of live of those suffering from it better," he said, regaining his composure as he sat back down.

"Is that why you set up the vaccination program?" I asked.

"Yes," he replied. "We're not really big players in the pharmaceutical world but we can make an effort, even if it's just by wiping out the flu."

"That sounds rather lame," I snorted, only realizing the insult of my words as they left my mouth. "I'm sorry.....I didn't mean to offend you."

"No offense taken," he chuckled. "And yes, it does sound lame. But do you know how many people still die of a common virus such as the flu?"

"No," I replied, "but I have the feeling that that number might increase drastically if I don't do my job right."

We were interrupted by a knock on the door. "Jasper?" The Latina I had seen at the hospital asked entering the room. "We have to get going."

"Ah Maria," Mr. Whitlock said, rising from his chair. "I don't believe you've met my new assistant, miss Alice Brandon, yet?"

"I don't think I have," she said, extending her hand out to me as her piercing black eyes scrutinized my appearance. "Nice to meet you. I'm Maria Delgado, vice president of Whitlock Pharmaceuticals."

"Nice to meet you," I smiled, giving her my firm 'I haven't decided whether or not I trust you' handshake.

"Now that we have the pleasantries out of the way, let's just get going?" Jasper suggested, grabbing his jacket from the back of his chair. "It was pointed out to me only today that people don't like to be kept waiting." He winked at me as he said those last words.

Son of a bitch.

I was getting some seriously bad vibes from that Maria woman though. There was something about her, something that warranted investigating. I didn't know what it was but I had felt it the moment I first set eyes on her at the shindig at the hospital.

If Emmett were here he'd probably joke around saying it was my vagina talking but female intuition or not, I didn't trust that woman at all.

The rest of the afternoon passed with a string of boring meetings and even more boring presentations. Whoever came up with the thought that medical conventions were a good idea should be shot. Or tortured. Or both. What good could come out of a bunch of over payed, arrogant dicks in lab coats congratulating themselves on being the saviors of the world? It wasn't like they were going to cure cancer over tea and light refreshments!

I had to hand it to Whitlock though, whatever rubbish those bastards threw at him – and believe me, they had plenty of that – he never flinched, always stayed polite and answered questions. I guessed it was like he had said earlier in the afternoon, most of the doctors and pharmacists in the room didn't care about making the world a better place to live in, they only cared about their bank accounts and trophy wifes and Jasper was threatening both of them by handing out their products for free.

"Thank you, mister Whitlock," a man said, walking on to the stage where Whitlock had just been grilled over his new anti-flu medicine.

I smiled, recognizing the man the moment he appeared. It was The Doctor, as we called him. Though we had never ha any dealings with him personally, we had noticed him around on plenty of occasions.

He was hard to miss.

There was something about him, though, that made me feel as if I knew the guy, as if he was some friend of the family. Not that that was possible – at least not with my family. Still.......

The doctor had been the only one who hadn't been treating Whitlock like he was a representative of Nazi Germany all day. It made me like the guy even better.

"So what did you think of my speech?" Whitlock asked as I handed him his coat and briefcase.

"Boring," I said honestly.

"Thanks for your honesty," he chuckled.

"I'm sorry if I'm coming off as blunt," I sighed, knowing that for the second time I had overstepped my bounds. "It's just that I don't speak doctor. It's pretty hard for me to understand a thing of what you were saying."

"You don't understand medicine but still you're trying to catch a terrorist who's trying to create a deadly virus?" he asked incredulously.

"I understand terrorists," I retorted. "If you know how they think you don't really need to know the stuff they are dealing with. It's all about catching the guy before he strikes."

"From what Carlisle told me I understood........." he lowered his voice, visibly struggling to find his words. "I understood he was connected to my dad?"

"He used to work for him at Lark Hill," I clarified, making sure to keep my voice level.

"Lark Hill?" Jasper's face turned ashen and his whole body froze.

"Yes," I said, still taking his reaction in. "He was very young back then....still in highschool. He used to come over after school to do all sorts of odd jobs."

"Odd jobs," he snorted. "I can believe that."

"Yes.....well...." I didn't know how to react. I had prepared myself for all kinds of reactions from Jasper when we talked about his father – admiration, respect, love....the usual feelings when people talked about their parents. Not this. Not anger and guilt.

"I'm sorry. I never knew anything of what was going on at Lark Hill," he said, sounding almost guilty. "Do you know? About my father?"

"I know," I said, battling to control my emotions.

"I never knew a person could be so cruel as to torture his patients by day and come home to sit down to a quiet diner with his wife and kids by night," Whitlock mused.

"Yes...well," I stammered, trying to steer the conversation into safer waters. "It's getting pretty late and I'm sure you have more important stuff to do than to sit around chatting to me all day."

"I don't actually," he grinned. "Do you?"

"No," I admitted. Bella and Rose would have left the apartment for Bella's hot date with what's his face by now, leaving me with nothing but watch old episodes of Gossip Girl while eating some microwave junk. "But after an afternoon as thoroughly boring as mine was I need some diversion to keep me awake."

"Will you let me buy you dinner to make up for it?" he asked, smiling timidly at me as he ran his hand through his hair. He wasn't actually that unfortunate looking when he did that.

"Okay," I said hesitantly. "But just so you know....I'm not having sex with you."

"Oh God no!" he said, holding his hands out in front of him like he was afraid I was going to rape him or something. "That's not what I was getting at. Hell no! I would be happy if we got through the night without you calling me an asshole again."

"I'll see what I can do," I snorted. "Am I really that frightening?"

"Yes you are," he chuckled."But I like a bit of fire in a girl."

"There's plenty of that to go around," I chuckled.

"I have no doubt of that ma'am," he laughed back.

"Don't you have to go back to your girlfriend anyway?" I asked.

"And who the hell might that be?" he wondered.

"Maria."

"Maria and I are not together," he shrugged. "Not anymore anyway."

Good.

Wait? What the hell?

Why was that good?

"You used to be?" I asked, not wanting to follow the path my mind had wandered into.

"Yes, for a while," he said. "When she started working for the company I just admired her because she was a brilliant virologist and could run a lab like she had never done anything else in her life. I was just in awe." He looked at me to see if I was still listening before he continued. "We were together a lot when we started working on our new vaccine and I guess we were both lonely and well.....one thing lead to another."

"Why did it stop?" I asked.

I had seen the girl and even if she was giving me bad vibes, she was gorgeous. She had that kind of curvalicious body that made all the boys drool as soon as they saw it.

The kind of body that made me insanely jealous.

I had always blamed old man Whitlock for my almost complete lack of feminine shapes. It was like my body had decided at some point that if no one cared about it, it wasn't going to do it's best to blossom into something feminine en no amount of pampering afterwards had made it see reason.

"I realized that apart from the sex and a shared interest in curing influenza we didn't have anything in common," he shrugged, "and it seemed like she wasn't really into it either. I don't know...."

Our conversation was cut off there by our arrival at the hotel. After checking for messages Whitlock guided me over to the restaurant where a table had already been set up for us.

I was beginning to feel awfully strange by then. I wanted to hate Whitlock for being who he was but part of me was really started to warm up to the guy. He was kind and gentlemanly and he exuded some kind of calm that made me feel more at peace than I had ever felt in my life.

We were mostly silent during dinner, both of us so wrapped up in our own thoughts that we didn't feel the need to chat away.

The silence was never awkward or laden though. Just.....comfortable.

"Can you tell me something about the medical aspects of the case?" I asked, after the waitress had placed our desserts in front of us. "I'd like to know more about the stuff we're dealing with here."

"I thought all of the medical stuff bored you?"

"Well humor me," I growled.

"I'm just a simple pharmacologist not a virologist," he admitted, "but I do know a thing or two about the flu. I'll explain it as best as I can but if you want to know more about it you'd better talk to Maria. She's the expert."

Another fact I stored away for future reference.

"So what can you tell me?"

"I understood that some ancient virus got stolen from Forks General Hospital a couple of days ago?" he asked.

"The virus that caused the Spanish Flu," I nodded.

"What I can tell you that the virus in itself isn't going to cause a major threat to public health," he started. "But you could use it to unleash hell just the same."

"How?"

"The virus – H1N1 – is know as a particularly aggressive type of virus. That's why the infection could spread so fast and affect so many people. The other thing that set this virus apart from your regular flu virus was the age of the victims and the rapidity with which the virus manifested itself within the human body. You see.....most people dying from the flu are either very young or very old, those who are weaker to begin with. This influenza virus targeted the strong, young people."

"And the speed thing?" I asked.

"It could claim your life within a day. You'd start to feel a little off some day and with hours you'd be too weak to even walk," he explained. "Your face would start to get a blueish tint to it and after a while you wold start coughing up blood."

I cringed, seeing the sight before my eyes.

"You'd die the next day of acute pneumonia, caused by virus-induced consolidation, if you were lucky," he went on.

"And if you weren't?" I asked, not wanting to know the answer but needing it to find out what we were up against anyway.

"You'd live on for days," he sighed,. "Dying slowly either from internal hemorrhaging, secondary bacterial pneumonia or even malnutrition or animal attacks because no one would dare to go near you, or anyone or anything in your home, as soon as you started showing signs of infection."

"But that virus is no longer a threat to us, is it?" I asked hopefully, the succulent slice of chocolate pie on my plate no longer seeming as succulent all of a sudden.

"This virus? No," he said. "As I said.....most people around right now have built up a resilience to the virus, though it could still cause a lot of harm."

I let out a small breath of air. Lots of harm was, in any case, better than major deadly pandemic.

"Good," I said.

"However," he interrupted, "I shudder to think what would happen if someone were to create a new virus, using the aggressive and deadly components of H1N1 and the contaminant components of another virus."

"Would that be possible?" I asked.

"Oh yes," he nodded. "You'd need a pretty high tech laboratory and a pretty good virologist but yes.....it is possible."

"Shit!" I whispered.

"In fact......" he continued, "a couple of years ago a virus very similar to the Spanish Flu surfaced in Southeast Asia."

"Avian Flu?"

"Correct. It was the Avian Flu, or H5N1 as it is referred to by the medical world."

"But I thought it was only lethal if you were fluffy and could fly?"

"It used to be," he explained, "but in 2003 the first humans started showing signs of infection."

"What happened to them?" I asked, wishing I had payed more attention to the news.

"Most of them died," Whitlock said. "However, the virus never became as dangerous to man as it was to poultry. The only way people could get infected was if they came into extensive contact with contaminated birds. The virus was and remained a bird flu, so you couldn't get infected from coming into contact with sick human beings."

"So that one isn't dangerous?"

"Not as it is," he said. "But if for some reason the virus were to merge with a typical human flu virus it would have the potential to be very dangerous."

"And what would happen if they were to merge it with the Spanish flu?" I asked.

"Total destruction," he whispered. "The Avian Flu is a very adaptable virus so it would be relatively easy. Both viruses are very similar and have been suspected to cause high mortality among the strong and young – those with the most healthy immune systems - because they attack the immune system through a cytokine storm."

"You lost me on the cytokine storm," I sighed, wishing once more my parents would have just let me go to school instead of keeping me locked up at home.

"Cytokines are important components of the immune system that act as messages between cells. When your body gets infected with a virus it's the cytokines that tell your immune cells to travel to the site of infection and start fighting it, you could almost think of them as the communication set a SWAT-team would use when it enters a building filled with dangerous criminals. The cytokines are also the ones that will call for backup when needed and that's where it goes wrong in a cytokine storm......"

"Backup doesn't arrive?" I thought out loud. "That's blows."

"No," Whitlock smiled. "The cytokines will keep calling for backup even though there are already more than enough immune cells present to fight the infection. With more and more cells clustering in one place they may even become more dangerous than the original infection."

"So the SWAT team will bring the house down?" I mused, trying to process all of the information.

"In a way...yes," Whitlcok replied. "That also explains why so many young people died in the Spanish Flu pandemic. Young people have the healthiest immune systems."

"How hard would it be to get hold of the Avian Flu virus?"

"Not very hard if you know where to look," Whitlock said, looking at me for the first time since he started talking. "In fact....I have several samples of the virus over at my lab in Seattle. Because my company specializes in influenza vaccines we've been attempting to find a cure for the virus."

"And do you know if all your samples are accounted for?" I demanded.

"I honestly don't know," he said, looking down at his plate again. "I deal mostly with the business aspect of the company, Maria is the one who runs our labs."

"Maria," I growled.

"What?" he said, looking straight at me with his sky blue eyes. "You think she's up to something?"

"I don't know," I shrugged, trying to hide my true feelings. I had a feeling he would go into the defensive if I pushed to hard or made my suspicions about Maria known. After all....they did date for a while. Who was to say he didn't still have feelings for her? "Do you?"

"I don't know," he mused. "It's not like I don't trust her.....it's just that she has been behaving a bit....odd at times."

"Odd?"

"We used to be good friends, even before we started going out," he explained. "We used to spend our nights talking about the things we were working on and just life in general but as soon as we stopped dating that stopped altogether." He looked at me to see if I was still with him and I nodded to let him know I understood. "For a while I thought it was just because we broke up and she was feeling awkward being near me all the time but lately I don't know anymore. Whenever I ask her what she's working on she starts snapping at me and accusing me of not trusting her. It's just strange........so unlike her."

"I get what you're saying," I replied. "Would it be possible for me to see your lab?"

"Sure," he shrugged, "though I doubt you are going to find anything down there."

"It would still be useful for me to get an idea of what we are dealing with," I persisted. I had a feeling the lab might be the key to understanding what we were up against and how we would be able to tackle this situation. I had to get in there.

"I'll take you,' he sighed. "I have a day off tomorrow anyway."

"Thanks," I smiled, almost feeling sorry for the guy.

"Maria isn't going to like this."

"I bet she won't," I grinned.

No. I bet she wouldn't like it at all.......not if she was what I thought she was.

A rat.

* * *

_**This chapter teaches you a bit more about what the girls are going to be up against. As I said before....I'm not a doctor, just a history teacher who's in over her head writing this kind of stuff. I did try to do as much research about the viruses mentioned in this chapter as possible but it's still confusing and sometimes difficult to understand and explain. I hope I did okay though.....**_

_**We'll be back to Bella's POV for the next chapter so you'll find out if she makes things right with Edward again and how Bella will end up in the most dangerous situation yet (believe me, the fight with Jake was nothing compared to what's waiting for her in chapter 20). I'll be posting a teaser with a clue about who Bella will be in danger from over at the twilighted boards sometime this week.**_

_**For now....please review.**_


	20. No I in threesome

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

* * *

**No I in threesome**

_**(Bella Swan)**_

"Have you thought about what you want to say to Stalkward?" Rose asked as we pulled up in front of Cullen Investigations.

"No?" I said in a tiny voice. With everything that had happened – the date and the whole aftermath which had taken much longer than we had thought – I hadn't exactly had the time to think about how I could fix this mess I had landed myself in.

"How about 'I still like you even in spite of the fact that you're a scary stalker. Now let's fuck?'" Rose offered.

"I'll keep that in mind," I snorted. "Though I just figured I'd let him come to me."

"Bella!" Rose scolded. "Haven't Alice and I taught you anything at all over the last year? You're supposed to be a confident, independent woman now and they never ever wait for the guy to make his move. They go out and get what they want."

"But he has a lot to answer for," I retorted. "I thought I'd just let him grovel for a bit."

"You can do both," Rose lectured. "Go in, be confident and powerful and make that guy crazier and hornier than he has ever been before. He'll be on his knees groveling or doing something even better before you know it."

"Thanks for the advise," I snickered.

"You're welcome," she laughed. "I'm just happy to be able to pass on some of my 'maneating ice queen' wisdom on our young Padawan."

"I don't know what I should call you now....." I snorted at Rose's solemn tone. "Alice the second or the Yoda of Seduction."

"I like that last one better, if you don't mind," she chuckled. "You know Edward has been calling me every five minutes since you went missing?"

"No?" I looked at her in astonishment.

"That guy really has it bad for you," she added.

"I guess," I shrugged. I didn't know how to react. I had never been in a situation where the guy I was dating actually cared for my wellbeing. True, I had never been in a situation where the guy I was dating knew what I was up to when I had a 'work emergency' but still this was all so strange to me. Nice, but strange none the less.

"Just a little tip," Rose offered. "Try being a little more enthusiastic when you see him. Guys don't dig the whole 'am I bothered?' thing."

"It's not that I'm not bothered," I sighed. "It's just that I don't know what the fuck to do."

"I'm no Alice," Rose stated. "But I think that if the pixie were here right now she'd tell you to just be yourself."

"That sounds an awful lot liker her, yes," I nodded.

"Look," Rose said, placing her hands on both my shoulders. "The guy digs you. He likes normal Bella, the girl who doesn't give a shit. Why is another thing and something I'm not sure I understand but he does. You don't have to go act unnatural....just let him know you like him."

"Okay," I replied. "I think I can do that."

"You'd better," Rose snorted. "I'll kick your ass if you let this one go."

"As if you could ever be a match for me," I snorted, whacking her on the shoulder with my fist.

"Oh and Bella?"

"Yes."

"You still need to kick his sorry ass for breaking into our apartment."

"Right."

"Just be sure to do it after you patched things up."

"Will do," I said, before opening the front door. "Thank you Yoda."

The downstairs area was deserted, as I expected. As soon as the clock read six o clock Lauren would sprint out of the door like the building was on fire and even though Bosley had hinted sometimes that a business like ours didn't exactly operate on office hours those words apparently had never quite sunk in with the heinous bitch.

She should have been glad she even had a job. I'm sure four out of five employers would have kicker her to the curb for what she did, attacking a client like that in front of his wife. Answering phones and typing out reports wasn't nearly as exciting as chasing down bad guys but she should have been happy Carlisle and Bosley had decided to keep her on, considering the current economic climate.

"Bosley?" I asked, knocking on the door to his office.

"You don't need to knock Bella," Rose snorted. "The chance of finding him with his pants around his ankles is pretty slim considering the one responsible for that is standing right next to you."

"Better to be safe than sorry," I quipped battling to push the mental image out of my head.

Emmett was by my side in less than a second, cringing as his arms crushed my sore ribcage, crushing me to his chest in a manner that almost broke bones.

"Take it easy Boss!" I squeaked, trying to wrestle free of his hold. "Can't breathe! Sore ribs!"

"Oh...Um....sorry," he stuttered as he backed away.

I looked around me to see Garrett and Edward sitting on the sofa, Garrett looking on amused as Edward looked like he was going to leap off the couch any minute now.

"Hi Bella!" Garrett finally grinned."Glad you survived your date in one piece!"

"Thanks!" I smirked. "Though with my record of dating criminals and random losers I didn't expect anything less."

Oops.

The words left my mouth before I realized how Edward might take them.

"I mean....well....uhm.....," I muttered. "Fuck." I heard Rose snort as I realized that this whole 'aloof unavailable ice queen' act was a lit more difficult than I thought.

"What took you so long?" Emmett intervened before I could make a total ass out of myself.

"We got caught up in paperwork," I sighed, hopping onto his desk. "It seems Jacob Black has been feeding us crap."

"That's just....disgusting!" Garrett groaned.

"Yeah well," I replied, rolling my eyes. "You try putting yourself in my shoes and see how you like it."

"Just a little reminder that even the great Bella Swan in fallible," Rose chuckled, ruffling my hair.

"So what did you find out?" Emmett inquired.

"Jacob Black is even more of an asshole than we thought," Rosalie answered. "It seems he set this whole thing up to take over from Sam Uley."

"What?" Emmett barked incredulously. "But I thought he gave us everything we needed on The Pack?"

"He did," I nodded. "But that doesn't mean he didn't bend the truth a little bit to accommodate his own fucking wishes."

"The dog even made us believe he was some kind of victim!" Rose growled, visible angry about all of this. "Turns out Uley and the rest of the gang had a whole different story to tell."

"Then why weren't we informed about all of this," Emmett hissed, "I thought we made a deal."

"Trevelyan," Rose and I both sighed. "Mulder and Weber wanted to call us when they found out Uley's story actually checked out but Trevelyan wouldn't let them. When Weber was finally able to sneak out of the building and call Bella she was already in the car with Black."

"How did you loose communication anyway?" Emmett demanded.

"Black," Rose growled.

"You remember back when we were doing the recon at the club and Alice and Rose lost contact with me when I went upstairs with Jacob?" I asked. Emmett nodded. "Turns out The Pack has some kind of device installed in their conference room that disables all electronic equipment. Forensics found the device when they were turning the place upside down. It seems Black installed one of those in his car as well. He must have guessed I wasn't the only angel on this operation."

"So what happened?" Emmett asked.

"Jacob tried to kill me. I stopped him," I shrugged. "It's a good thing Alice never got to my shoe collection because I don't think a pair of Jimmy Choos would have done the job as adequately as these puppies." I pointed at my boots.

"And don't go looking like you pity the guy!" Rose snorted as we spotted all three of the guys looking mortified and Garrett actually holding one hand over his groin as if he was afraid I'd go after him as well.

"Don't worry," I snickered. "Your balls are safe. I've made enough victims tonight."

"Right," Garrett laughed, looking a little embarrassed.

"Rose called the cops immediately after she called you and we spend the rest of the night at the station giving statements and catching up with Angela and Kate."

"Did you find out anything useful?" Emmett asked.

I noticed how Garrett was suddenly very interested in the conversation.

"It turns out Uley is the gentleman crook in this story," I shrugged. "He took a step back from the organization after he got married and left the day to day running of The Pack to Jacob. Turns out that wasn't the smartest decision he ever made." I rolled my eyes as I looked at Rose.

"Under Black's rule The Pack became more aggressive and more and more engrossed in their illegal activities and even though Uley was still the 'alpha male'," Rose added, making made quotation marks in the air, "he lost control of the direction The Pack was headed in."

"Then why did Black betray his buddies?" Garrett asked.

"Who knows?" I shrugged. "I think he may have wanted full control of their activities. With The Pack's democratic rule he never would have gotten that. Perhaps he even thought he could move up higher on the food chain in some other organization."

"Denali seems to think Black made a deal with some other big crime organization to start running their narcotic activities."

"Another big crime organization?" It was the first time I had heard Edward speak since I entered the room and even though I was still angry with him for the complete lack of trust in my abilities he had shown, the sound of his voice still made me feel weak in the knees. I could ignore him as long as he sat on the sofa and kept quiet but God help me when he would start uttering more than one sentence.

"The Volturi?" Emmett asked, running his hand through his hair.

"What other big criminal network is there in this town?" I shrugged.

"Fuck me," he breathed.

"I'd rather not," I snorted. "That's Rose's task."

"Damn right," Rose whispered.

"Anyway," I continued. "They are bringing in the Clearwater's as we speak to find out how deep they are involved in all of this and if they know anything about Jacob's possible involvement with the Volturi. Angela promised to keep me posted if they find anything we may want to know."

"Does she know about Trevelyan?" Emmett asked.

"I told her," I nodded. It had been a difficult conversation. Not because Angela wouldn't believe me, but because I had to make absolutely sure there was no way our conversation could be traced. Who knows what Trevelyan or the Volturi might have done if they found out we knew?

"Are you sure......." Emmett started.

"Of course I am sure," I growled. "It's Angela we're talking about here! If she's with the bad guys I'm committing suicide!"

"Sor-ry," Emmett huffed, rolling his eyes.

"So what are the plans now?" Garrett spoke.

"We take on the Volturi," I shrugged. They were behind all of this and I would bet a good deal of money that if we searched long and hard enough we might even find some kind of connection to James and his virus. They had to be stopped. I would personally see to that.

"NO!" three voices yelled at once.

"Remember what Carlisle said Bella?" Rose hissed. "We don't get to take revenge until this thing with James is settled."

"What if they are mixed up in all of that as well?" I retorted.

"Bella, listen to me," Edwards spoke authoritatively. "I know a thing or two about the Volturi and they are not to be underestimated."

"Don't I know it," I snarled, hopping off the desk to find some kind of outlet for my frustration.

"If we want to get rid of them we have to tread carefully," he continued. "Those guys from the reservation may have just handed us the key to all of this but if we don't have the patience to open the door the right way and kick it out of its hinges instead we will still be left with one big mess. We have to be patient."

"Easy for you to say!" I yelled. "They didn't destroy your whole fucking life!"

"Sit down Bella," Emmett ordered, his voice uncharacteristically calm and collected. He didn't give me any chance to ignore his order, picking me up and placing me in the chair instead. "I know what the Volturi did to you and your family but you cannot let that rule your life. If you can't get your shit together and start listening to Carlisle's orders you will leave me with no other option than to suspend you from active duty."

"What!" I yelled.

"He's right Bella," Rose spoke softly, sitting down on the armrest of my chair. "You let your emotions rule your actions. That's good when it allows you to get new insights in the cases we work on but when you start running around like a chicken with its head cut off we have to take action."

"I'm not running around like a chicken with its head cut off!" I growled.

"Not yet," Rose retorted. "But you're getting awfully close."

I took a deep breath, processing what Emmett and Rose told me. It took me every bit of my strength not to break their noses but I made the effort because some part of me – deep down inside – knew that they were right.

"Okay," I sighed.

"Okay?"

"I'll back off from the Volturi," I growled. "But if you turn me into Lauren Mallory II then so help me God I'll blow up the Volturi headquarters within the hour."

"That seems reasonable," Emmett snickered, taking my hand and shaking on the bargain. "Now lets get the fuck out of here, I'm tired."

"Bella," Edward said, stopping me before I could leave the room. "I need to talk to you."

I took a deep breath, trying to remember Rose's words. "Okay, let's have it," I shrugged, trying to seem disinterested.

"Not here," he sighed, his eyes meeting mine for the first time this evening. They looked different.

Defeated.

"Where?" I said, still clinging desperately to every bit of 'aloof unavailable ice queen' I had though I realized that it was really a lost cause.

I guess snarky Bella only came out to play when bullets were flying around her head.

"My hotel?" he asked, a little hesitantly.

"I don't know," I muttered, looking at Rose who was nodding her head, still looking displeased with the total lack of kickass Bella I was displaying.

"Please?" he pleaded, his sad green eyes searching my face, imploring me to come with him.

"Okay," I shrugged. Who was I to deny that man anything if he asked for it nicely? I would personally challenge everyone – even Rose – to do so.

"Good," he said, solemnly nodding his head. "Let's go."

The next half hour or so passed in horrible, uncomfortable silence, the engine of the Volvo being the only thing to produce sound as it purred through the empty streets of Forks.

The silence went on as Edward handed the car over to the valet and helped me get out of the passenger seat though his touch set off that familiar spark I always felt when he was close.

He looked at me with a sad smile and grabbed my hand, though still he didn't speak, making me wonder how Dave Gahan could ever have enjoyed silence so much he wrote a song about it.

Silence sucked.

Still, I was too much of a coward to start speaking myself.

When we got to his room I walked, in, taking a seat on his sofa, trying to get comfortable on one of the most uncomfortable contraptions known to man.

"I'm so sorry Bella," Edward said softly as he closed the door room behind him. "Wrong doesn't even begin to cover how wrong I have been. I not only betrayed your trust and everything that we have together but I also showed a huge lack of respect for you as a professional. I'm sorry."

"I accept your apologies," I replied, meanwhile trying to find the words to expres my feelings. "You're right. You did a bad thing....but I could have at least showed you the decency of letting you explain....."

"No Bella," he interrupted me. "You're not to blame for this in any way..."

"Let me speak," I interjected, holding up my hand. "I have never dated a guy like you, a normal, nice guy, and to be honest it scares the crap out of me."

"I...scare you?" he mused, looking astonished at my revelation.

"You do," I grudgingly admitted. "I only date random losers and criminals. They are kind of predictable in the way that you never have to expect anything from them and they rarely expect anything from you....well, apart from the obvious."

"What does that have to do with...."

"Will you stop interrupting me?" I huffed. "We're getting to that. Okay?"

"Sorry," he said, taking a seat next to me on the sofa, though he was careful to keep as much distance between us as possible. He must have thought I didn't want him close to me.

"It's okay," I shrugged, scooting closer to him. As soon as he read my intention he pulled me closer and wrapped his arms around me, his head resting on top of mine as I snuggled into his chest. "I'm just so terrified dating a guy I actually like, very much so in fact, that I sometimes do the most crazy things, like jump at any available possibility to bolt."

"I don't think you did a crazy thing," he sighed into my hair. "You were angry. You have every right to be. But Bella....." I looked up at him as his tone suddenly got very serious. "Know that you will never have anything to fear from me. I did a terrible thing....but I did it because I was afraid of losing you. I love you Bella."

"What?" I knew I must have looked like a nauseous donkey but the fact that this man – this demi-God – actually admitted to loving me – the nauseous looking ass – had a way of paralyzing every brain function I had left.

"I know it's way too early to have these feelings and you're probably going to run for cover but I cannot and will not deny it," he rambled. "I love you Bella Swan and if you'd let me I will show you just how much. Every day. For the rest of forever."

"I love you too Edward," I whispered.

Before I had time to register any movement his lips had crushed to mine, devouring them in a kiss that relayed every feeling we had for one another. As our tongues frantically battled for control I felt him lift me up in the air, my legs wrapping around his waist like it was second nature to them as he carried me to the bed. I giggled as we stumbled across the room in our awkward procession towards the bed but my sounds were soon smothered by Edwards lips.

I squealed as he threw me down on the bed, crawling up towards me like a lion stalking its prey, his eyes burning with love and lust.

"What are you doing?" I giggled as I watched him take the hem of my shirt in between his teeth and nudge it up slowly, exposing the skin of my stomach to the cool air.

"What does it look like?" he growled, his eyes boring into mine like those of a predator stalking its prey. Just the look of him send a shiver through my body. "First I'm going to kiss and lick every inch of your divine skin until you scream and beg for me to make you cum." I took in a sharp breath as he spoke, my whole body heating up as I imagined him doing that to me. "Then, when I have you on the brink of insanity, I'm going to make you cum so hard every guest in this hotel will know you're mine and mine alone."

Just hearing those words almost had me at that point and I swallowed hard, trying to remain as composed as I could given the circumstances.

"Would you like me to do that Bella?" he asked in a demanding tone. "Do you want me to lick you until you cum so hard you can't even remember your name?"

Even when he was talking dirty to me Edward remained a gentleman, always asking me for permission before he continued.

"Answer me," he demanded, his hands rubbing over my nipples through the fabric of my shirt and bra.

I nodded mutely. Who was I to say no to that?

"Good," he nodded, ripping my top away from my body before I even realized what he was doing. His lips crushed to mine, claiming them with a mindblowing kiss before tracing a trail down my neck and clavicle to the top of my breasts, where the fabric of my bra stopped him.

"This has got to go," he muttered, unfastening the clasps.

"Okay," I croaked, already beyond the realm of sensible language.

He leaned in to kiss both of my peaks before settling on the left one, his tongue swirling around my nipples as his hand massaged the other. "Perfect," he muttered against my flesh, switching sides as he continued to kiss and nip at my tender skin, sending me to the brink of insanity.

When he was satisfied he had lavished enough attention on my breast he moved lower, his hands still resting on my mounds as he licked the skin of my stomach, dipping his tongue into my belly button as he slowly made his way down.

"Edward," I pleaded. The things he did to me, even with half of my clothes still in place, were driving me almost insane.

"Patience, love," he purred, his hands moving down to take of my pants. He sat up as he moved the fabric away from my legs, taking one of my bare calves in his hands as he removed the sock and slowly kissed his way up to my thighs.

"Do you have any idea how how amazing your skin tastes?" he asked in a breathy voice.

"No?"

"It makes me fucking impatient to find out what your pussy tastes like," he growled, gently placing my leg back on the mattress before taking the other in his hands and repeating the process.

"Then hurry up," I groaned, meaning very word of it. If he didn't hurry up I was going to combust with unrelieved sexual tension.

"Your wish is my command," he chuckled, dropping my other leg as he quickly removed my soaked underwear.

"Beautiful," he muttered, raking his eyes over my body as it was finally completely bare to him.

I shivered with anticipation as he crawled up my body again, kissing the inside of my thighs before finally turning his attention to my almost painfully throbbing center.

I had to bite my lip to keep myself from screaming when he moved his tongue through my wet folds, kissing my clit before moving down again.

"Just as I though," he purred contently. "Fucking delicious."

Having him talk to me like that made every nerve in my body tingle. Who knew that the guy who was such a perfect gentlemen in real life turned out to be a fierce lion in the bedroom?

I wasn't given much time to ponder that little bit of information before I felt his firm pointy tongue at my opening, moving in and out of my while lapping at my juices.

"Edward!" I moaned, feeling that familiar coil starting to tighten in my stomach as my hands clawed at the soft fabric of the sheets. "God! Please!"

I was so close.

So dangerously and delightfully close.

"Ahhhhhh!" I screamed out as his thumb started rubbing circles over my aching clit, sending my flying over the edge almost instantaneously.

I had no control over my mouth, all sorts of moans and inarticulate phrases rolling out of it as my whole body and soul shook with the force of my orgasm.

"God I love you," was the first coherent message I was able to relay as I came down from my high to find Edwards head next to mine on the pillow.

"I love you too, my angel," he whispered as he kissed me softly and tenderly. The combined taste of him and me making me hungry for more.

For him.

"My turn," I grinned, as we broke the kisses, winking at him as I kissed my way down his perfectly sculpted chest, while my hands went on ahead, stroking his already rock hard erection through the fabric of his jeans.

"Bella," he moaned, making me loop up at his face again. I couldn't believe that I was the one who made him emit those sounds. That me, plain old Bella, could make a man as hot as Edward as aroused as this.

"Yes Edward?" I purred, as my fingers opened the button of his jeans and carefully slid down the zipper, making sure to brush against his erection at any opportunity.

"Will you please just stop torturing me?" he groaned.

"I didn't know I was torturing you," I said in as innocent a voice as I could muster given my current state of excitement. "I was only trying to make you feel as good as you made me feel just now." I snickered inwardly as I pulled his pants and boxers down his legs. Rose was right. This whole vixen thing was fun!

"Please," he moaned as I slowly kissed and licked my way up his legs.

Who was I to decline a desperate plea from my very hot, very aroused boyfriend?

"Anything for you," I chuckled as I leaned in, lapping up the drops of pre cum that had gathered on his head.

I could feel his body tense as I licked a trail down his shaft, placing a kiss on his balls before moving up again. His hands fisted in the sheets below him as he tried to remain still.

I took as much of him into my mouth and started bobbing up and down slowly, my tongue swirling his head on my way up as my hands assisted my movements.

His hand fisted in my hair, moving it out of the way so he could get a clear view of my actions. I peeked up to see him staring down at me, his hooded eyes filled with lust and love.

He groaned as I relaxed my throat, taking him in even deeper, his hand fisting in my hair to aid my movements.

"Bella," he warned in a drawn out throaty moan as I felt his body tense with his imminent release. He removed his hand from my hair, silently giving me to option to pull back. I think I loved him even more for that, though in my case it was utterly unnecessary.

I winked at him, Increasing my pace as I brought up my other hand to cup his balls.

"Ungh...Bella....I'm going to...." he moaned. The rest of his statement was lost over the blaring sound of his alarm clock which went of simultaneously with his release. As he twitched into my mouth, releasing his cum down my throat his hand swept the alarm clock off the bedroom table, the little black menace crashing into a thousand little pieces as it made contact with the wall.

"God Bella," he panted, coming down from his high. "I love you."

"I love you too," I smiled, crawling back up over his body.

He took my face in his hands and kissed my lips. Tenderly, almost reverently. I sighed contently as I sucked his deliciously pouty bottom lip in between mine and slightly opened my mouth, silently asking for him to deepen the kiss.

After a few moments of heaven, our kisses growing more passionate and demanding by the second, I could feel him starting to pull away, sighing discontentedly as he broke the connection.

"You have to go," I pouted, connecting his behavior to the sound of the alarm clock.

"Yes," he groaned. "I don't think I have ever hated my job as much as I do this moment but I have a meeting with Gibbs and Denali in an hour and since my boss kind of hates my guts right now as it is I can't afford to be late."

Stupid cockblocking alarm clock.

Stupid cockblocking work.

"Don't worry," I smiled, unable to resist kissing his lips as long as they were still around to be kissed. "Go be an FBI hotshot. I'll see you when you get back."

"You're welcome to stay here and get some rest," he said, kissing me one last time before he got up from the bed.

"I might just take you up on that offer," I grinned, thinking of the Spanish Inquisition that no doubt awaited me back home.

Somehow I did actually manage to fall asleep after the single most satisfying sexual experience of my life. I wondered, just before I drifted off, what sex with Edward would be like. If just rounding third base was as amazing as it had been I wasn't sure if I would survive going all the way.

I could just see the headlines in front of me: woman dies in orgasmic self detonation.

My former buddies from the police force would love that!

However, even in spite of all the dangers attached there wasn't a doubt in my mind that I would pounce on the occasion – or better said: Edward – every opportunity I had. If not for 'dominus interruptus' I might have already had the pleasure.

I awoke somewhere around noon to the sound of my cell phone going off and was greeted by a particularly chipper Rose who jumped straight in and asked me for details of my night.

"I'm not going to tell you," I growled.

"_Fine," _she huffed. "_Meet me at the apartment as soon as you're able to distract yourself from your boyfriends penis. We have stuff to discuss." _

I didn't bother to tell her that sadly my boyfriends penis was nowhere in sight at the moment but agreed to meet her at home in half an hour.

I beat Rose to the apartment, making my way to my room to shower and change before she got there.

When I got out of the shower I saw I had one missed call and a new voicemail message.

"_You have...one...new messages,"_ the metallic voice barked.

"_I need proof,"_ I heard a female voice speak.

"_What kind of proof?" _a deep male voice responded in an almost amused tone, his thick Italian accent making it sound almost as if he was reciting poetry.

"_The kind of proof that clears chief Swan,"_ the woman continued.

"_And you think I've got it?"_ the man chided.

"_Come on Aro,"_she snickered._ "We all know that picture came from you." _

Aro?

Aro Volturi?

Was this woman the one who had send me the picture a couple of days ago?

"_Perhaps,"_ Aro mused._ "But why should I share it with you?" _

"_We have joined interests in this matter,"_ the woman explained in a calm, almost icy tone, _"you should jump at the chance to let us do your bidding." _

I heard a faint click in the tape, making me think someone had skipped ahead in the conversation.

"_Very well," _Aro responded after a few moments and I could hear a clicking sounds of what I supposed to be a safe. _"You can take the picture but the rest of the file stays here." _

"_I understand,"_ the woman said, rifling through some sort of file from the sound of it."_This is....impressive,"_ she remarked after a while.

"_Trevelyan may be a fool but that doesn't mean he was eager to do my bidding,"_ Aro responded. _"It took me quite a bit of research and persuasion to get him to defect." _

"_Thank you for this,"_ the woman said and I could hear by the scraping sound of a chair being pushed back that she was getting ready to leave.

"_This is just business," _Aro replied in a measured voice. _"I do however wish wish you the best of luck on your mission. The whole family has been a thorn in my side for as long as I can remember." _

"_The whole family?"_ a female voice asked with a hint of sarcasm.

"_I have no doubt you know how the father pestered me for years before I managed to sideline him,"_ the male voice explained. _"What you may not know is that her mother was equally annoying." _

My breath hitched in my throat.

My mother? What did she have to do with the Volturi?

"_No, I didn't know that,"_ the female voice asked apparently amused. _"Tell me." _

"_She was working as a secretary at one of our corporate fronts,"_ the male voice explained._ "I guess I should have known that hiring the wife of a policeman wasn't smart when you wanted to keep the true identity of your business a secret but for some reason or other I gave her a chance."_ It was silent for a few moments before he continued._ "No surprise the whole venture turned into a huge disappointment and I had to undertake some action to cover my tracks." _

I couldn't hold back the sobs as I listened, the images of the scene of the crash hours after my mother had died flashing before my eyes.

I didn't want to know this.

My mothers death had been an accident. Not some criminal revenge scheme.

I couldn't handle this.

Not right now.

Then, almost as soon as the pain and grief had sneaked up on me, another emotion took its place.

Anger.

Pure unadulterated rage.

The conversation on the phone went on for another minute or so but I didn't listen. Plans were forming in my head. Things were starting to shift into place. Plans were starting to unfold. Plans I had been developing for the best part of a year now, just waiting for the right opportunity.

I was up and about before I even knew it, rifling through drawers and closet to get all te equipment I needed to execute my plan.

"Hey Bella!" I hadn't heard Rose come in. "Did you manage to tear yourself away from......" She broke off her sentence as she saw me, her eyes flickering between me and the duffel bag beside me.

"What are you doing?"

"Listen," I growled, replaying the message to her.

I saw her eyes tighten as she listened to the first part of the conversation and widen as we reached the part where Aro Volturi admitted to killing my mom.

"No Bella," she whispered, her voice and face betraying her horror as she realized what I was going to do.

"You cannot stop me," I said, as calm as I could though my whole body was still shaking with rage.

"For fuck sake Bella! Think before you act!" she yelled, taking a step closer to me and my bag. "We're in the middle of an operation...."

"Do you think I give a fuck about the operation?" I seethed. "This is my MOM we're talking about here!"

"Fine then!" she barked. "Think about Edward. How do you think he'd feel when you get killed!"

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," I growled, throwing more stuff into the bag.

Edward was the one thing that bothered me. I didn't want to loose him. Not now, not ever. What if I did end up hurt...or worse?

No.

I simple wouldn't let it come to that. I would walk out of Volterra Towers with nothing but a smile and the evidence I needed to clear my dad.

"I'm going to do this Rose," I stated, I had never felt more calm about anything in my life. "Whether you want to or nor, whether Carlisle is going to fire me or not....I'm going to do this. I have to."

"I know you do," she said, equally calm. "And I'm going with you."

"No you're not," I spat back. "This is something I need to do."

"There's no I in threesome Bella," she replied calmly.

"Don't you go quoting Interpol at me!" I growled.

"Look Bella," she interrupted me. "I may not agree with what you're about to do but I sure as hell won't let you barge into the Volterra Tower alone. We're friends and friends always have each other's backs."

I tried to argue with her but there was no point. Rosalie Lillian Hale was the most stubborn person in the world and if she made up her mind to come with you then you'd better make room in your plans for her because there was no way you could shake her off.

"So how are we going to do this?" she asked, opening my bag and rifling through the contents. "I figure you must have some kind of plan."

"One hell of a plan, in fact," I smiled smugly. "I started planning this the moment I left the Academy. I knew the Volturi were involved in all of this but I needed proof to stake my claim."

"And breaking into the Volterra Tower takes more than a smile," Rose nodded.

"Yep," I sighed. I had soon found out the Volterra Tower, the pace from which the Volturi ran both their legal and illegal activities, was one of the best protected buildings in the state. "It's a good thing I dated that guy who worked at Gateway Security."

"You mean Eric Yorkie?" Rose asked.

"The one and only," I nodded. Eric had been just another one of those random losers I dated before Edward came along but in this case I had no one but myself to blame for ending up with him. "He used to brag about having designed the whole surveillance and security setup for Volterra Tower. He even showed me the damn prints on his laptop!"

"Loser," Rosalie chuckled.

"Tell me about it," I huffed, rolling my eyes. "One night when he was passed out after sex I hacked into the damn thing and copied all files he had on the place. That combined with the blueprint I was able to get my hands on gave me a nice idea of what we have to play with."

"So what's the plan?" Rose asked eagerly, her curiosity winning out on her anger and apprehension for the moment.

"The ventilation shafts are the only way in without getting spotted by the surveillance camera's so if we want to get into Aro's office on the 21st floor they are our best option."

"But how do you get there?" Rose asked.

"Do you think that with everybody scrambling to get out of the building they are going to pay attention to the little girl going in?"

"Too risky," Rose said, shaking her head. The exits will be guarded by security guards."

"That's why I'm going to be in the building when the alarm goes off."

"How?"

"Hagen, Cage, Fish and Associates," I explained. "I'll be asking advice on a legal matter. They are only one floor down from Aro's office. I'll go in, set up an appointment and ask to use their toilet before I head out again."

"And that will be my cue to set off the alarm?" Rose nodded. "How did you plan to do all of this on your own?"

"It would have been hard but I would have made it," I shrugged.

"Yeah right," Rose smirked. "Let's just get going before I change my mind.

I thought about the consequences of my actions while we drove over to Volterra Towers in the center of town. This could either go very good, resulting in the arrest of the Volturi, or very bad, which probably meant I would get killed. Whatever way it went, however, I knew I would be losing my job over this. There was no way Carlisle would ever tolerate an angel running an operation without his sanction.

I knew that what I was doing was wrong and ill-considered. I was risking everything away, my job, my friendship with Rose and even the love of my life for something as base as revenge, but for some reason I wasn't able to stop myself. I had to do it, even if it would be the last thing I did, and I couldn't wait any longer.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Rose asked, as we stopped in front of the tall art deco building known as Volterra Towers.

"Yes," I said decisively.

"Good luck," she whispered, hugging me closely. "You're going to need it."

"I'll keep in touch with you every step of the way," I said. "If anything bad happens get the hell out of here. Don't wait and don't go in."

"You're crazy," Rose muttered. "Please think about this. Please wait."

"Bye Rose," I whispered, getting out of the car.

I didn't look back. I knew that if I did I might change my mind and go back.

Not now.

Not when revenge was so close I could almost smell its sweet scent.

The first part of my plan went more smoothly that I would have thought. I played the part of the disgruntled employee, wanting to sue her boss for withholding payment.

They took my information and made me tell my story before promising to get in touch with me after they had looked into the matter before politely trying to get rid of me. When I asked if I could use their facilities before I left they showed me to the lavatory near the elevators, the one I had been hoping they would suggest.

"Rose?" I whispered as I closed the door behind me.

Alice was the computer geek in our team but Rose had picked up a lot of that stuff as well over the years. The really difficult stuff may have been out of her league, but between the things she had learned from Alice and the access codes I had been able to copy from Eric's laptop I was sure she would be able to do it.

"How are you doing?" I asked, hoisting myself onto the counter.

"Almost there" she whispered in my ear.

"Hurry up," I urged. "If I spend too long in here they are going to get suspicious. There's only so much time a person needs to go number two."

"Patience is a virtue," she sang, annoyance seeping into her voice.

"So is modestly but I don't see you chuckling out half your wardrobe."

Her reply was cut off by the blaring sound of the fire alarm, soon joined by the sound of people retreating hastily from their offices.

"Thanks!" I whispered before getting to work. I knew I only had so much time before someone would come in to check if the building was empty.

I quickly unscrewed the ventilation grille and carefully lifted myself into the shaft, using the counter to get my footing. When I was up I placed the grille back in its place, making sure no traces of my presence in the room remained, before I went on my way.

I tried to remember the blueprints as I crawled through the cramped shafts, trying my hardest not to make any sound. I had spend a lot of evenings going over the plans for the climate control system, focusing my attention on ways to move through the building undetected.

If I remembered everything correctly there had to be a side shaft leading off of the one I was in in a couple of feet with a shaft going up to the 21st floor from there.

I breathed a quick sigh of relieve when I spotted the dark tunnel to my side and found out that a few feet into that one there was indeed a funnel going upwards.

I reached into my pack and pulled out the magnetic climbing gear we used for situations like these. I quickly strapped the leg wear to my calves and feet and pulled on the gloves before hoisting myself into the funnel without giving myself any time to thing about the strength of the magnets or the risk of falling.

Climbing up a narrow ventilation shaft using nothing but your own strength and the small amount of grip the magnets provided was harder than I thought it would be but eventually I made it up to the 21st floor. I took a few moments to catch my breath, lying flat on my stomach in the shaft before I proceeded again.

I stopped at the second grill to my left side, above the room that, according to the blueprints, was the office of Aro Volturi and looked down. Through the pattern in the grille I recognized the room from the picture. Not that much had changed. The huge mahogany desk in the middle of the room, the dark green chesterfield chairs, the large cupboards in the corner, hiding what I hoped to be his personal safe.........

"Don't waste time Bella," I whispered to myself, reaching in my bag again to pull out a wrench to unfasten the bolts on the ventilation grille.

I had to take care not to let the screws drop to the floor. I had no idea if there were people down in the corridor who might hear the sounds that made so it was better to be safe than sorry.

When the grille was unscrewed I moved it aside and carefully lowered myself to the floor, landing with a soft thud on the plush Persian rugs that covered the floor of the office.

I heard the door opening behind me almost as soon as my feet touched the ground. Too late I realized this was a trap. They had dangled the bait out in front of my face and I had taken it without even stopping to think about whether it was poisoned or not.

Before I could turn around to face my enemy more footsteps followed his into the room and I could hear the familiar clicking sounds of guns being armed.

I had been so stupid and now I would pay the ultimate price.

"Good morning Miss Swan," the voice I recognized from the answering machine spoke calmly and with a thick Italian accent. "I've been expecting you."

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_**Remember....if you kill me now you'll never find out how this ends. **_

_**Yes, Bella did a stupid and reckless thing but you have to take into account that the pain she's dealing with is still very fresh and she has a rather tempestuous character in the first place. **_

_**What will Rose do? Will she go in? Call for backup? Drive away and order a Happy Meal at the nearest Mackie D's?**_

_**The next chapter will be in Aro's point of view. I'm very excited for it since I got to put my love for the Godfather to good use. A tease of the chapter, along with some links that may be useful will be posted on the twilighted topic for this story on Sunday. **_

_**You know the drill.....please let me know what you thought of this one.**_


	21. A violent conquest has a stronger flavor

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

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_**I love Italy and opera and was very happy that I could use some of both in this chapter (even though I hate that I turned the only Italians that are into this story into criminals. It is kind of cliché , I know, but it works for this story.)**_

_**My Aro for this story is Andy Garcia (my Aro for Twilight is someone else actually...). Imagine him with a thick Italian accent sitting in a lavishly decorated office in the middle of his own empire and you have the scene in front of you that I saw when writing this chapter.**_

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**The violent conquest has a stronger flavor**

_**(Aro Volturi)**_

"Send them in," I ordered, releasing the intercom button as soon as I finished speaking. I turned my seat so that I was facing the window. Looking down on the world from the 21st story of a building my building – would turn any man into a philosopher and I was no different.

I often wondered what my life would have been like if I had been born into a different family. Perhaps I would have become a lawyer instead of just pretending to be one on occasion like I did now. I might have become a highly regarded doctor, driving is medical students close to insanity, like my cousin in New York. Who knows? I might have even been the headmaster at some kind of prestigious school, molding the future of America.

America.

My family's adopted country.

We had come a long way since that day my father set foot on American soil on Ellis Island in 1920. A long and troublesome road, paved with blood and sweat lay behind me. To say that America had welcomed us with open arms would be a very ambiguous statement. Times were hard. Work may have been relatively easy to come by but for a young, ambitious man such as Carmine Volturi it was hard to move up in society.

The annoying sound of someone scraping their throat pulled me out of my thoughts and I turned to see who the intruder was, kissing the ring bearing my family's crest as my eyes flashed over the portrait of my father hanging proudly on the wall.

"Yes," I barked, perhaps a little more severe than the occasion warranted.

"Felix and Demetri are ready for you, sir," Renata, my assistant spoke, flinching slightly at the harsh tone of my voice.

"They had better be," I scowled before composing myself again. "Thank you, miss Vitelli, you can show them in."

"Subito," she nodded before stepping aside to let the two men walk into the inner office, their eyes cast downwards on their shoes.

"That will be all, miss Vitelli," I smiled, watching Renata retreat and close the door behind her before turning my attention on the two fools standing in front of me. "Come forward," I motioned, my tone severe again.

Knowing what was expected of them they shuffled forward, keeping their eyes on their shoes. When they reached my desk they leaned forward and kissed the signet ring on the little finger of my right hand, a ritual they had performed countless of times.

"Step back," I ordered. They did not deserve to stand close to my desk, a privilege only awarded to those in favor.

They slowly stepped backwards, careful not to make too much noise. Repent showing on their faces as clear as the daylight streaming into my office from the window behind me.

"I am going to tell you a story that I hope you will learn from," I started, my eyes once again lingering on my father's picture as I indicated for them to take a seat on the hard wooden bench near the door. It was the bench I reserved for those who were out of favor. "Do you know who this man is?" I asked, pointing at the portrait.

"Yes, boss," Demetri stated casting a quick glance at the picture before lowering his eyes again. "It is your father, don Carmine, God rest his soul."

"Good," I nodded. "What is not commonly known about my father is how he came to emigrate to America and what his life was like before he came here."

They both nodded, their heads still downcast, making for an amazing sight as the crowns of their hair bobbed up and down.

"Picture this, Sicily, 1901." I started, getting lost in my own thoughts as the images started playing in front of my eyes like a movie. "A beautiful young woman starts working as a kitchen maid for the infamous Sforza family who hold the village of Volturi and its surroundings in an iron grasp. Her family were lowly peasants who owed the Sforza's a lot of money, a debt that would be payed off by young Sofia Petrillo. The next morning she meets the village butcher's son for the first time and they fall in love almost as soon as they set eyes on each other." I looked up to see if my audience was still paying attention, which, fortunately for them, they still were. "They meet every day in the morning when the butcher's son delivers the meet over to the house and soon they start making plans for the future. However, don Vitale Sforza, has other ideas for the girl. He has fallen in love with her himself and refuses to grant his permission for a marriage in the hope la bella Sofia will end up in his bed."

"What happened?" Felix inquired eagerly.

"They started seeing each other in secret," I continued, letting his interruption slide for now, "meeting in a field halfway between the Sforza's home and the village. One thing lead to another and soon Sofia found herself in trouble. Even though they knew they had sinned against their beliefs they were both very happy, thinking this would allow them to finally get married."

"However...things didn't go exactly as planned," I went on. "Don Vitale was outrages when Sofia told him the truth and locked the poor girl away in a room in the basement."

"What did Salvatore do?" Felix asked eagerly. "Did he whisk her away in the night?"

"You really should stop reading your sister's romance novels," I smirked, shaking my head. "This isn't a story about love overcoming obstacles, this is a story about what happens when you don't listen to your superiors."

I leaned back, folding my hands behind my head as I continued. "Almost the moment Sofia left the office don Vitale ordered the death of Salvatore Volturi." Both heads snapped up for the tiniest moment, a look of surprise on both of them. "The next morning Salvatore's car was stopped at a field about halfway between the Sforza mansion and the village," I continued, ignoring their stares. "Romantics claim it's the same field as where Salvatore and Sofia met at night but I personally think that would be too much of a coincidence.....They cut Salvatore's throat and took him back to the mansion where they stripped him of everything he had, including his skin, in front of the male members of the Sforza family and all of the staff."

I took a breath, thinking about those brutal times. I send a silent prayer up to give thanks for the much more refined ways of dealing with one's enemy's of today. I didn't think I had the stomach to watch something like that myself.

"All of the staff?" Felix interrupted me, looking a little green himself.

"Don't interrupt me," I barked. "But yes....all of them, including my grandmother. It was a reminder to everyone of what happened when you disregarded an order from your betters."

I took another few minutes, pondering the death of my grandfather, before I continued. "Sofia was kept under lock and key in a shed on the premises until she delivered her child. She was shipped off to a convent almost as soon as her son was born and mother and child never saw each other again."

I looked at my father's face again as I concluded my story. He had grown up in the household of the man who killed his father and – in a way- his mother, working as an errant boy as soon as he was able to and as a soldier in Don Vitale's family later on. When he found out what happened, seventeen years later, he left the mansion without saying another word. Some say he fled but we preferred to think of it as retreating temporarily to fight another day, when the two parties were equally strong.

There had been no doubt in my fathers mind that that day would come. Sicilians never forgot, we had made waging a vendetta almost into a form of art.

"The two of you disobeyed an order," I mused, looking at the two men again. "I told you to dispose of the merchandise discreetly and quietly but no, you had to go driving around the city way above the speed limit in broad daylight, almost as if you wanted to get caught."

They shifted nervously, no doubt sensing where this conversation was headed. "Perhaps that was what you wanted...." I mused. "Perhaps you made a deal with the police and had yourself arrested to cover up your conversations."

"No," Demetri spoke, shaking his head furiously. He knew as well as anyone else that breaking the silence was the worst offense in our way of life, penalized with not only the death of the one who broke the 'omerta' but often also his family.

"No?"

"We were just fooling around boss," Felix apologized.

"Fooling around?" I barked, slamming my fist on the polished wood of my desk. "You were handling merchandise worth a hundred thousand dollars and you were 'fooling around' with it?"

The both thought it wise not to reply for which I thanked the heavens. They would only have made matters that much worse and at the moment I couldn't afford to loose two of my most loyal and – for the most part – trustworthy soldiers.

It had been a mistake to venture into the world of narcotics. For decades my family had shied away from the very lucrative market since it. For one because drugs turned the youth into apathetic, selfish creatures who made lousy soldiers and secondly because the drug scene was far too high profile for us. If my memory served me correctly the government was even waging a war on them at this moment.

High profile was something we were not. We were like the secret that everyone knew about. Everyone knew who Aro Volturi was and what he stood for, but no one had enough evidence of it to lock me or mine away.

Still...the chance had been to good to let pass by. To be offered the empire of my greatest competition in this town on a silver platter was something that would not happen a second time and to be honest, I would greatly prefer to have that Jacob Black character in a position where I could see him.

Of course everything had gone pear shaped the moment the Swan girl had started to meddle in their affairs and now I was left with an unholy amount of class A substances and no idea of how to sell them.

"Just remember the story," I huffed, sitting back again as I recomposed myself. "Next time I won't be so merciful."

"Thanks boss," Demetri sighed, visibly relieved to be let off the hook.

As if I would forgive them that easily. Perhaps if they could pull off this next assignment without attracting attention I would let them back in my favor. After all, they were almost perfect soldiers.

They had made me so proud until this foolish incident. They made a perfect team. Demetri was obviously the brains of the duo and his focus and concentration made him one of the best marksmen I could boast of. Teamed up with a muscular and brawny personality such as Felix, who could threaten almost any man into subordination just by looking at him, they were as good as invincible.

"Report to Caius as soon as you leave this office," I shrugged. "He has your next job for you.."

"We won't let you down sir," Felix smirked, his huge posture still hunched over and remorseful.

"You had better not," I warned. "Fail me again and you will be truly sorry."

I knew the job I was going to send them on would not be easy. Killing a police man was a difficult task and bound to draw attention to my family, killing the chief of police was like stepping into a mine field with nothing but an oven mitten to protect you.

Yet it had to be done. Alistair Trevelyan was turning into too big a liability to let him walk free. With the picture out in the open and a smart and unshakable man like Eleazar Denali so close to him I couldn't take the risk.

Trevelyan had been a useful asset but right now I could come to no other conclusion than that he had outlived his usefulness and had to be taken care off. We never left loose ends. Nothing that could trace back to us. We always kept out secret.

I had thought about killing Denali as well but that would be pushing my luck. I might be able to get away with killing Trevelyan when I send in the right guys to do the job, killing two of Forks finest in a short amount of time would be too obvious.

I would have to be patient and wait a couple of years to complete my task, though I hoped those years would not give that pesky detective the time to built up a case against me.

When I looked up again Felix and Demetri had left, making a silent retreat so as not to disturb me.

As soon as I established their absence I turned my chair again, reminiscing about the events of the past. My father had come to this country with literally nothing, scarping a living by executing brain numbing tasks at factories in New York and, after he had married my mother, Seattle for five years before his opportunity presented itself.

It was the roaring twenties and the golden age of the mafia. The United States of America were living on the edge of the most destructive economical crisis the country had even seen but most of the people in the streets didn't realize that yet, they were far too busy enjoying their new found liberty and the loosened morals.

The mafia made the most of this time as well, supplying all the liquor the youth craved for their new found partying ways, even though the government preached a strict policy of abstinence. If those solemn rule makers had know their decisions gave birth to a criminal organization that still ruled supreme, even seventy five years after the Prohibition had come to an end, would they have acted the same?

Not that I had resented them for their decision of course. Far from it. It had been the decision that had made my families fortune.

My father was working as a waiter in a fancy Seattle restaurant by the time, when he walked in on two aspiring members of the Gonzaga family killing a man in the alleyway behind the restaurant. It was his luck that made him walk in on this macabre initiation rite and not a random hit because he would not have walked away with a beating heart if it were the latter.

Before the two men could kill him a man stepped in. It was Peter Clemenza, the caporegime – on of the most trusted in the Gonzaga family – overseeing this brutal rite of passage. Clemenza knew a promising young man when he saw one and took my father back with him after the two aspiring wise guys had completed their mission and thus my fathers true life began.......

Most of the things that had happened to my father next had featured in my life as well, though it had been a lot easier for me to assume my place in the family, being the air apparent.

My father had been given a chance to prove himself as a soldier in the Gonzaga family, going through the same initiation rite he had witnessed in that alley no more than a month after it happened. When he came back to the Gonzaga mansion after his first successful hit he was formally 'made' into a member of the family, dripping his blood onto a painting of saint Adrian of Nicodemia, before holding the burning image in his hands until it had fully crumbled to ash.

In the years that followed my father had risen up in the ranks of the family to become one of their most trusted assets. When some small time crook, originating from the town of Forks had started causing trouble for the Gonzagi, the family had to act, wiping out the criminals and establishing Carmine Volturi as the new boss of Forks' criminal undertakings.

I remembered it clearly, being a boy on the edge of manhood at the time. My father had been so proud when he was able to present my poor, hardworking mother with a beautiful large house in a quiet and respectable neighborhood in an equally quiet and unassuming town. They had both been happy, my mother with her new life of luxury and my father with the growing success of his enterprises.

When I had been old enough to assume my position in the family it had grown into an empire of respectable proportions with branches both legitimate and illegitimate and a criminal organization that was feared and respected by all and had held this town without dispute for half a century.

I had added to its success over the years, that was true, but without my fathers hard work and dedication I would have been an insignificant spec of dust.

I nearly jumped from shock when the telephone on my desk started ringing, disrupting my pleasant trip down the lane of memories.

"Boss?" Heidi's voice sounded agitated. She was the only person, apart from my wife and children, allowed to call me directly.

"Yes, miss Hagen?" I knew I was regarded as somewhat of an oddity by my peers for not only employing women in the lower divisions of my family but even taking my legal advice from a woman.

To the outside world we were seen as very traditional, keeping our wives firmly locked up in the kitchen and seeing them either as the Madonna or the whore. I, however, had learned to see past those visions that had been ingrained in my being ever since I was born. I chose practicality over tradition if it meant having the best people at my disposal. And miss Heidi Hagen was the best consigliere a person could wish for.

"The Swan girl is in the building," Heidi announced. "It appears she has a meeting with one of my associates."

"Good," I mused, glad that finally that particular ball would start rolling. "What has been done?"

"We have eyes and ears on her, boss," Heidi answered.

"Tell them not to loose sight of her at any moment," I warned. "Those angels are a pesky breed. If you give them even the tiniest window of opportunity they will bring the whole house down."

"We have everything prepared boss," Heidi reassured me. "Security knows how important this is."

"I hope they do," I replied. "Report at my office as soon as you can get past the girl undetected."

"Of course," I heard her say, before I broke the connection.

I remembered the day Heidi came to us. All fresh and unspoiled, a German exchange student looking for a summer internship so that she could get extra credit with her professors. She had been smart, eager to learn and – to be honest – astoundingly ruthless for a woman.

A few days into her internship she had caught the eye of my consigliere at that time, a man going by the name of Silvio Dante. When he introduced her to me I was stricken, not only by her capability but also by her beauty and grace. The woman had a way of enthralling everyone around her, quite like the Lorelai, a feature which came in handy – very handy – in the legal trade which was still domineered by old and very often sexually frustrated men. Over the years she had grown into a trusted and reliable asset, my right hand even, sharing not only the secrets of my trade but also, on occasion, my bed.

"Miss Vitelli?" I asked, pushing down the little intercom button again. "Bring in Alec and Jane."

"Of course sir," Renata's soft voice sang back.

Alec and Jane.

Alessandro and Gianetta.

My prodigal children. So young and yet so tainted.

I had stumbled upon them almost by accident when two of my soldiers were send to take care of a gang of bag snatchers who were disrupting my business. Who could imagine their surprise when those bag snatchers turned out to be mere children, not even twelve years old?

Unable to kill them they had taken them back to the Tower to seek my counsel. The sight of them, two small children who had been able to unleash a reign of terror on a busy shopping street, melted my heart and I took them in, placing them in the care of one of my caporegime.

They proofed to be more valuable than I would ever have imagined.

They always worked together, Alec keeping their victim sedated and balanced on the edge between consciousness and unconsciousness while Jane unleashed the worst kind of physical pain on them I had ever seen a living soul inflict on another living soul without killing the victim. Most of the time their victims succumbed to their reign of terror within hours, the brave ones managing to hold on for perhaps as long as a day. However, I had heard of a few examples of how they could keep up their game for days, slowly torturing their prey without killing it and without even drawing blood or making a mess.

They had almost made inflicting pain and punishment into a form of art, making me wish my poor father, God rest his soul, was here to see them. He would have been thrilled with the prospects.

I had to admit that hearing about their brutal skills to me had initially disgusted me. They were so young, so innocent in their appearance and the thought of a woman, pure and unspoilt, the image of the virtuous Madonna, torturing a man to within an inch of his life was wrong, I still thought it was. But, once again, the benefits outweighed the moral aspects.

I had to admit: my empire would not be what it was today if not for the 'which twins' as they were dubbed by some.

"Padrino," Jane greeted in a sweet voice the moment she entered the room. Like Demetri and Felix both of them kept their eyes downcast but from them it was out of reverence, not guilt. Heaven forbid of those two angels should ever feel guilt.

"Ah, my dear Jane, Alec, come closer," I smiled, giving them permission to approach and be seated at the soft plush chairs at the opposite side of my desk. "I have work for the two of you."

Janes eyes light up the moment she heard my words. "Work?" From her youthful appearance no one would suspect that she had turned twenty two late last spring. She looked five years younger at least.

"Not the kind of work you'd enjoy," I warned, "you are not allowed to draw blood or break bones today."

Both of them pouted as I spoke but I wasn't going to give in to their pleas. We were dealing with a woman here. An annoying and particularly unwomanly example of her sex, but a woman none the less and therefore not to be tortured too severely.

"But we are allowed to kill?" Alec asked, his eyes lifting to mine as they scanned my face.

"Yes," I nodded, "but only if and when I tell you to."

"Of course," Jane smiled innocently, wrapping a strand of her long dark blond hair around her fingers. She looked like an angel. A very dangerous and bloodthirsty angel. "We will not let you down."

"I know you will not, my dear Jane," I smiled, patting her other hand which was resting on my desk. "I have every faith in you."

"What is the plan boss?" her brother asked, eager even in spite of the fact that their task would be relatively boring today.

"I have received reports that a woman is trying to break into my office to try and obtain some documents about her parents I keep in my vault. It goes without saying that I intend to have her stopped before she succeeds in her plan."

"So you're asking us to do what?" Jane asked. "Just kill her?"

I could understand her disappointment. Jane had always loved the chase better than the kill itself a character trait that already manifested itself when she was a mere child. I remembered the day when I watched her torture a dog, a sentient creature, to death in a slow, deliberate and very meticulous way. Even though I had been appalled by her cruelty I had known there and then that she would proof to be a very valuable asset to my family and she had proved herself to be just that ever since.

"No," I said. "I'm not asking for an easy kill. I would not insult your capabilities with such a request. I want information from her."

"Information?" Alec asked, sitting up a little straighter. I could see that both their interests were piqued.

"The woman works for Carlisle Cullen Investigations," I explained. "She is bound to know something that may lead to his elimination."

"Very well," Jane smiled, looking like a cat who had just spotted a very tasty and fat canary.

"Remember," I warned. "You will not do her too much harm. You may intimidate to your hearts content and play with her a little bit but you are not to draw blood or break bones."

"Yes, padrino," Jane sighed, looking a little peeved.

I prayed to God she would not give me any cause to be disappointed. I knew Jane too well. I had watched her tempestuous temper flare up too many times to know that it would not take much to have her snap. Usually that would not be so bad. In fact, her victim might prefer to be killed fast in a fit of rage than to be slowly tortured to death by a calm and composed version of Jane. Right now, however, it could proof to be a problem.

"May I ask you a question, padrino?" Alec asked politely.

"You may," I nodded, wondering what it would be that the boy had to say.

"How do you now this woman is going to break into your office?"

"A very smart question, my dear boy," I praised. "Not that long ago I received a visit from a woman who asked for my aid in destroying Carlisle Cullen and since I have wanted to do that same thing for quite some time now I agreed to help her."

It felt wrong, acting on the whims of a woman. I might have been modern enough to employ them and threat them with the same respect I treated my male subordinates, but that didn't mean I was ready to let them order me around.

Still.....what was that saying again? Never looking a gift horse in the mouth? If the dear woman was ready to hand me the offspring of one of my most worthy adversaries on a silver platter then who was I to refute her offer?

Not that I trusted the woman for even a single moment. Being in this business you learned to read faces and body language and even though she did a good job at hiding it, I knew she was up to something, something that didn't just concern the Swan girl. Something that made me make a mental note to get rid of her as soon as this situation was dealt with.

After all, she used to work for Carlisle Cullen, the man who had been a thorn in my side for almost as long as I could remember.

The way this man and his band of female soldiers had been pursuing me over the last few years reminded me of the vendetta my father had waged against the people who had killed his parents and even though Cullen had as yet been unsuccessful I knew better than not to expect a blow from him at any minute.

It was almost as if he was just biding his time, waiting for the right moment to strike. It made me think that maybe he and I had some dealings in the past, though neither my own personal records nor those miss Hagen kept didn't show anyone by the name of Cullen crossing my path.

I looked up to see both Alec and Jane looking expectantly at me, waiting for me to finish my explanation. "She thought it best to eliminate his employees before targeting Carlisle Cullen himself. With his precious angels out of the way he would be an easy target, or so she thought."

"Why didn't she just shoot them?" Alec asked. "Any fool with a gun can execute a hit."

"The woman in question used to be one of Carlisle's chosen ones herself and from what she said I got the distinct impression that she had some unfinished business with them," I explained. "She does not just want them dead, she wants them crushed."

"When her initial plan of having one of the girls murdered by The Pack fell through she turned to me, It turned out the girl in question was Isabella Swan."

"The daughter of the former chief?" Alec laughed.

"Yes," I nodded, "but what you may not know is that her mother had some dealings with the Volturi family as well."

This would be too convenient. Not only would I be able to give Carlisle Cullen a message of what it would be like when you messed with my family, I would also get rid of another potential troublemaker. I had come to know the Swan family well over the years and I knew none of them where to be underestimated. If this girl....this Isabella Swan, was anything like her parents she had the potential to be a danger to my family.

I could not let her live.

There was a knock at the door before Heidi made her appearance in my office, looking a little nervous still as her hand steadied the headset of her communication device in her ear. It was no secret that miss Hagen did not like these kind of situations.

"Has everything been arranged?" I asked.

"Yes," she stated. "All available soldiers are waiting next door to be summoned the moment you need them, security is keeping a close watch on the exits and a red BMW parked down the street."

"And the rest?"

"We have no reason to believe she won't go for the air conditioning system but if, for any reason, she decides not to we have a couple of men on backup to deal with her the moment she tries to leave the 20th floor."

"Good," I nodded. "Excellent work."

I had always known the airconditioning system was the buildings weak spot as far as security was concerned. Of course weak spot was a relative notion, seeing that one would have to gain access to a ventilation shaft first and that could only be done thought the roof or one of the ventilation grilles inside the building, but if someone could somehow bypass the camera's it would give them free reign to move through the building undetected.

The Swan girl would be a fool if she didn't go with that option.

I could hear the muffled sounds of a man speaking before Heidi spoke again. "Security says the Swan girl has just entered the restrooms on the twentieth floor," she said.

So it began.

"Then let us leave this office and wait outside," I suggested, getting up from my chair right before the fire alarm started blaring though the building.

She was smart, using the fire alarm to cover up her activities. In the confusion of the evacuation no one would notice the camera's going off line or the security system getting hacked into. Her plan would have been flawless were it not for the fact that her enemy was already waiting for her.

When we reached the outer office the confused faces of my most trusted soldiers looked up at me, wondering why they had been ordered to remain in the building when it was on fire.

"There is no fire, gentleman," I explained, "just a pesky wasp trying to break her way into my office."

Heidi quickly got them up to speed before the waiting in silence for the wasp to fly into its trap began. I had never been a very patient man, even though my trade dictated it, and being humiliated by having to evacuate your office didn't help this situation. It seemed like hours when a soft thump on the carpet told me the moment of action had finally arrived.

I signaled for my soldiers to stay behind me as I opened the door to my office, revealing a frail creature standing with her back to me in the middle of my office.

"Good morning miss Swan," I announced, amused with my own success. "I have been expecting you"

I heard the clicking of the guns of my soldiers as they filed into the room behind me, providing protection should the girl do something utterly stupid.

"Turn around," I ordered. "Slowly and with your hands where I can see them."

She did as she was told, slowly revealing herself to me as she turned, her hands stretched out to both sides, her hands open as if in surrender. The look on her face was a combination of anguish and anger.

She made an impression, this woman, like her mother had done before her. She reminded me of the women of my native country, a country I had visited only sporadically. She was strong, sensual and impetuous, a deadly combination in one so beautiful.

But I could not let my mind linger down this road. She was a nuisance and I would have to get rid of her.

"She will be bugged," I said. "see to it she won't be any longer."

"Of course boss," Jane nodded, curtsying as she stepped out of the line of soldiers behind me before she walked over to the woman who was still standing in the middle of my office.

"Kneel," she ordered.

"What?" the girl asked, looking from one face to another with a face that told me she knew exactly what was going to happen.

"I said kneel," Jane snarled, her left foot making contact with the girls kneecap, making the woman sink down on her knees regardless of whether she had been planning to comply with the order given to her or not.

I saw her wince in pain as her sore knee hit the ground but otherwise she kept quiet, plunging the entire office into an almost eerie silence.

"Open your mouth," Jane commanded next.

"Open you own damn mouth," the Swan girl snorted, pursing her lips tightly together.

"I SAID: OPEN YOUR MOUTH!" Jane yelled, her tense stance and strained voice betraying her particular hatred for this woman.

The girl kept her mouth shut, looking defiantly at the fuming little woman in front of her. I might have found this amusing if I hadn't been annoyed with the way the Swan girl was dragging this whole thing out.

It was almost as of she wanted to die.

"Alec," I ordered, nodding at the young man standing next to me. Jane was starting to loose her temper already and needed some time to cool off before she went too far.

He bowed his head in understanding before he walked forward, carefully pushing his sister out of the way before taking his own, proud and self assured, stance. He towered over the Swan girl as he rolled up his sleeves, a menacing look directed at his victim.

"You are going to wish you gave in to my sister when you had the chance," he snarled, his fingers tightening over the woman's nose to prevent her from breathing through it. "You can't keep this up for long. We are going to break you down whether you want to or not. The only thing you can decide is if you want to make it fast and painful or long and even more painful."

She managed to hold her breath for a long time, almost turning blue before she finally had to open her mouth and gasp for breath. The moment she did Alec pried her jaws apart so that his sister could enter a pair of forceps into her mouth and remove the microphone from her molar teeth.

The girl winced in pain as the device was extracted forcefully from her mouth and she looked at me accusingly, still trying to catch her breath again as she sagged down onto the carpet, her hands and knees holding up her weight.

I noticed a few drops of blood leaking onto the Persian rug and turned to Jane who was smiling at the sight of the woman in pain before her.

"I thought I was very clear in my instructions," I warned.

"She fought back," Jane pouted. "It could not be prevented."

"Very well," I sighed. "But calm yourself my dear one, no good will come of you loosing your temper."

"May I proceed?" she asked after taking a few deep breaths and calming herself.

"You may," I nodded before turning my attention back to the Swan girl. "We want some answers from you."

"Oh really?" she snorted, spitting a bloody stain on my rug. "As you can probably tell.....I'm not really in the mood for talking."

Before she had time to anticipate the blow Jane had slapped her on the cheek, the one on the side where the communication device had been, with the flat of her hand.

"That's not really helping sweetheart," she growled, taking Jane completely by surprise when she hit back.

"BITCH!"Jane shrieked, holding her hand over her reddening cheek. "You fucking hit me!"

"That will be enough Jane," I commanded, making her step back and compose herself once again. I did not allow course language to be uttered in my office and certainly not by a woman.

"But. She. Hit. Me," Jane hissed.

"Do not make me send you away," I warned before giving Alec the order to proceed where Jane had left off.

"Tell me about Carlisle Cullen," I said, taking Janes place in front of the Swan girl as Alec stood behind her, his hands around her neck.

"You killed my mother," she growled in response.

"Yes," I stated calmly. "An unfortunate incident but it had to be done."

"What?" she looked at me with an incredulous expression.

"We have an ancient rule miss Swan,' I explained. "No one who isn't part of our circle, is allowed to know how we operate. Unfortunately your mother did her job as a receptionist a little too well. She saw something that she shouldn't have seen and we had to take care of her."

"Take care of her?" she yelled, her pain and anger showing on her face. "You're talking about her as if she were some kind of dog. You fucking MURDERED her!

"Your employer," I repeated, changing the subject "tell me about him."

"I think you may know more about him than I do," she snorted. "Let's talk about my mom and how you killed a completely innocent woman."

"I do not believe that, my dear," I laughed, ignoring her last remark, nodding to Alec who immediately tightened his hold on the girls neck. . "Tell me what you know and I may make this a little....easier on you."

"I don't have anything to tell," she said, her voice sounding a little labored as Alec's hands drew tight around her neck.

I nodded at Alec again to make him tighten his choke hold yet again. "I do not believe you."

"Suit yourself," she gasped, her hands closing over Alec's to try and pry them away from her neck, her efforts utterly unsuccessful since Alec had dealt with this kind of situation a lot of times over the years.

He eyes grew bigger as she gasped for breath, panic overtaking her features for the smallest hint of a moment before she was in control again. The facade of snarky defiance firmly back in place as she spoke. "Do you think that if I knew something I would tell you, you fucking Italian piece of shit?"

The fact of the matter was: I did believe her. There was truth in her eyes underneath all her brawn and fake confidence. However, I could not let her insult me and my heritage in front of my soldiers. And I could not let her walk out of this office alive. Even though she might not be able to lead me to Carlisle Cullen, she still posed a threat to me.

"Jane," I said, nodding at her as both Alec and I stepped back again, leaving the girl to catch her breath.

Jane beamed at me with gratitude before she stepped forward, crouching so that she could bring her face flush with that of the Swan girl.

"No one talks to the boss of the Volturi family like that," she barked before she spat the woman in the face. "You'd better learn some respect if you want to be treated with it."

"Now," I interrupted. "I have some questions for you, which you will answer if you do not want to die and excruciating death."

"I plead the fifth," the Swan girl growled in response, glaring at me with those big chocolate eyes.

I nodded at Jane, allowing her to take this game to the next level, a task she was all too willing to execute.

"Now what shall we do with you?" she asked, pulling up the leg of her pants to pull a knife out of her boot. "Shall we cut off your ears to hear how hard you can scream? Or shall we tear your flesh to see how hard you can bleed?"

She crouched down in front of the Swan girl again, pulling the girls downcast head up. "I asked you question," she spat, bringing her face closer to that of the Swan girl. "It's impolite not to answer."

"It's also impolite to make someone bleed all over these nice Persian rugs," she Swan girl spat back.

I had to hand it to the girl. She had some nerve in her. Many before her had found themselves face to face with the magnificent Jane and very few had managed to do what this extraordinary woman was able to do: stare death in the face and laugh at it. I admired her for it, even though that would not change the outcome of this.

Jane and the Swan girl were still locked into a staring contest. I could not see the expression on Janes face which had me worried, especially since the Swan girl looked at her with a look of sarcastic defiance.

I saw Jane's body tense before she acted, drawing her arm back and slamming it against the side of the Swan girl's face, the blunt side of the blade making an awful noise as it made contact with the girls temple.

"That will be enough Jane," I ordered. "Step back."

The Swan girl seemed to enjoy this, even though she had to be in considerable pain from the sight of the gash the blade had left behind.

"Go back to your master Jane," she chuckled, taunting my poor girl even further, "playtime is over."

Fortunately Alec had the good sense to step in before his sister could act, looking at me for consent as he dragged his sister towards the exit, her body squirming to get free while she uttered profanities that were very unbecoming for a woman.

I sighed. I would have to speak with her about her behavior in this room soon and it pained me to have to scold her. She was as precious to me as my own children were and I hated to have to punish her but perhaps that behavior on my side had caused all of this.

"Do not make the mistake in believing this is over now," I warned the Swan girl. "You may meet with your end faster, but don't be mistaken: it will end here. Your time is running out fast."

"I have friends who will come looking for me," she smirked, a trail of blood drizzling down her cheek. "Friends who won't let you get away with all of this."

"You are nothing but an insignificant little wasp, waiting to be put to death," I said. "Some people might grieve your death but the world won't stop turning because you no longer walk its surface."

"My friends will come looking for me," she repeated, looking down now though I did catch the little flicker of doubt in her eyes before she turned away.

"Will they?" I mused. "Or will they be too angry with you for your actions? I wonder...."

"You don't know anything....." she yelled, despair and fear seeping into her voice. "I have people who love me and....."

"I have often found love and hate are two emotions that are very much alike and can fade into each other very easily."

"SHUT UP!" she yelled, her face shooting up again as her large brown eyes glared at me. Still defiant and strong but now with a fragility and sadness that made me a little sad. It meant she was giving up.

"Demetri, give me your gun," I ordered without taking my eyes off the girl. I had to deal with this woman and I had to do it fast before she would get to me. "I feel like dealing with this girl myself."

I heard Demetri come up behind me before I felt the cold steel of his gun against my hand, making me wince inwardly. I might me a man of violence, that didn't mean I was a violent man myself. Being the son of the boss had fortunately prevented me from having to kill too many men over the years and ever since I was in charge I made it my business to avoid using violence myself.

Except in cases such as this....this girl deserved to be killed by the hands of the boss himself. Having her shot like a dog by one of my inferiors would have been insulting to the bravery she had portrayed.

I took a firm hold of the gun brushing my hands over the barrel to familiarize myself with the cold steel before I turned my attention back to the Swan girl.

I noticed how her posture had changed during the last few moments. She no longer looked afraid, just determined and prepared. Her shoulders drawn back and her chin up, almost defying me.

"So courageous," I thought aloud, "almost as if she were eager to die."

"Shut up and do your worst," she spat at me, her eyes glistening with rage as they bored into mine accusingly.

"So feisty," I laughed, looking at the men behind me as I uttered the same words my father had spoken to Vitale Sforza, minutes before he put a bullet in the old man's brain. "Ha più forte sapore la conquista violenta." It was my family's secret motto, drawn from the last words that were spoken to my grandfather before he died.

"The violent conquest has a stronger flavor," The Swan girl translated, glaring at me.

I was surprised. It was not often one came across a woman with an understanding of my native language so deep withing the depths of the state of Washington. "And very erudite as well," he smiled. "It makes killing you such a waste."

I wondered what might have been if I had found this woman before Carlisle Cullen sank his teeth in her. She would have made a magnificent soldier, rivaled only by Alec and Jane.

"Then don't," she said with a humorless laugh.

"L'ora è vicina," I promised her, drawing from the opera of Tosca again. "Are you prepared?" I did not know if she was a religious person or wanted to perform some other ritual to prepare her for death.

"Just get this over with," she growled, closing her eyes as she sat up straight, chin up and shoulders back, like she had done before, her face relaxing as she prepared herself for the journey to the other side.

I looked at the gun in my hands, suddenly feeling regretful of my decision to kill this woman myself.

What was wrong with me?

I had never liked committing acts of violence but that had never made me doubt ordering them from my subordinates or even performing them myself. What was it with this woman that made me so reluctant to kill her? Was it the fact that she was a woman and I felt deep down inside that it was wrong to kill a member of the weaker sex?

"Boss?" I heard Felix said behind me.

"Hold your tongue," I barked. "Give the girl a few minutes to prepare."

Just when I raised the hand holding the gun, a hand which suddenly felt like it weighed tons, I head a rumbling noise behind me, moving towards the office fast. Before a moment had passed we could distinguish different noises, voices telling people to move their hands above their heads, boots running through the corridor, more voices making arrests, feet kicking in the doors.......

Almost the moment I heard them approach the door to my office was kicked open, and a SWAT- team started filing into the room with blazing guns. They were lead by a man with strange, almost bronze colored hair which looked like he had been running up the stairs to the 21st floor faster than the wind.

"FREEZE! FEDERAL AGENTS!" he shouted, his gun moved to my head almost instantaneously, though his eyes lingered on the Swan girl who was still kneeling in front of me with her eyes closed.

In that moment I realized that she had been right when she claimed she was loved dearly and that her friends would come looking for her.

I had not realized that moment would come so soon.

What to do now? Surrender and hope for the best or do what my forefathers had done for ages and take this girl with me to the other side?

* * *

_**- ducks back into hiding -**_

_**I know I'm starting to turn into the evil queen of cliffie's here and believe me...we haven't even reached the climax of this story yet.**_

_**I promise the next chapter will start with the outcome of all of this. It is in Bella's POV. I will be posting the chapter songs (yes, plural) and a teaser at the twilighted boards in the next couple of days. It also holds links to more information about the mafia, Tosca and a picture of the guy I picture as Aro in the books (Richard E Grant).**_

_**Please feed my addiction and review. It makes me a very happy evil bitch.;-)**_


	22. Heaven

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

* * *

**Heaven**

_**(Bella Swan)**_

The words echoed in my head as I slowly felt the blood dripping into my eye.

As easily trapped as her dad.

Inadequate.

They were right. I was inadequate.

So inadequate I had selfishly put my own need for revenge above everything else, even above the love of my life.

"Demetri, give me your gun," I heard Aro's sickening voice command, "I feel like dealing with this girl myself."

I saw one of the men move forward, presenting his gun and handing it over to his boss, looking at me like I was no more than an insect crawling before his feet.

I guess he was right.

I was no more than an insect. A little wasp with her wings torn off....harmless as long as you knew how to steer clear of her stinger. I was just waiting, biding my time until Aro Volturi decided to kill me.

I had heard that sometimes when your body is preparing for death your whole life passes in front of you but at that moment I could only see the horrible blunders that had lead up to this moment.

How could I have been so stupid?

So stubborn?

So completely out of my mind?

I sat up a little straighter as I saw Aro take the gun in his hands and brush his thumb over the barrel, caressing it like it were a woman's body. I may not have been able to escape death but at least I could make sure I would die with what dignity I could muster.

"So courageous," Aro mused, looking at me with a bemused smirk, "almost as if she were eager to die."

"Shut up and do your worst," I barked. I didn't know how long I could keep this up but, judging from the way my whole body was trembling, it wouldn't be long.

"So feisty," he chuckled, looking over his shoulder to his subordinates before continuing in Italian, a language that was way too beautiful to be coming from a person as vile and evil as him. "Ha più forte sapore la conquista violenta."

They all looked at him with that expression that you get when someone doesn't understand what the fuck your saying but is ashamed to admit it.

"The violent conquest has a stronger flavor," I muttered, glaring at Aro. I may not have known much Italian but I had picked up something over the years through my mother's love for opera, a love she had transferred on to me.

"And very erudite as well," he smiled. "It makes killing you such a waste."

"Then don't," I smiled wryly.

"L'ora è vicina," he reassured me. I bloody well hoped so. This Tosca quoting game was getting old. I sure as hell hoped Aro wouldn't draw out my execution the way they did with poor Cavaradossi.

"Are you prepared?" he asked, raising the hand holding the gun.

"Just get this over with," I growled, closing my eyes as I sat up as straight as I could, trying to summon the most happy moments of my life.

Christmas dinner with my mom and dad.

My dads face when I got accepted into the Police Academy.

Edward looking at me over the corpse of Tyler Crowley.

Edwards face, closing in on mine as he leaned in to kiss me.

The look of bliss on his face during the nights we had spend together.

I had never loved life as much as I had done waking up today, the day that was going to be my last.

I could almost feel the gun enclosing on my face and I drew in a sharp breath, right at the moment all hell broke loose.

At first it was just a faint rumbling, causing confusion in the room, the the noises swelled and I could recognize voices yelling orders and feet marching through the building, coming closer and closer every second until they reached the room.

"FREEZE! FEDERAL AGENTS!" a voice I would recognize everywhere yelled as the door was kicked open.

I slowly opened my eyes, looking into Edwards face as he stood in the door frame, his gun pointing at the back of Aro's head.

My heart broke from the mixture of anguish and rage on Edwards face. Rage when he looked at Aro and the hand holding the gun to my face. Anguish when his eyes wandered over my bleeding face and settled on my eyes.

Edward.

The person I wanted to see more than anyone else, more even than I wanted to see my father. Yet, now that he was so close I wished he wasn't. He shouldn't have to see this. He shouldn't be here when Aro killed me.

Yes. I had no doubt in my mind that I was going to die, even with the FBI filing into the room behind Edward.

I knew too much. I could tell too much. Letting me live was too risky , even if killing me would terminate his own life.

"I wouldn't point that thing at me young man," Aro warned, never taking his eyes of me. "Not if you ever want to see this young lady walk out of the room."

"I wouldn't point that gun at her, old man," Edward snarled. "Not if you want to breath in the free air of the state of Washington before you die."

"You have nothing on me," Aro chuckled. "The girl broke into my office and I apprehended her. In fact.... you should thank me for doing your job for you."

"Guess again Don Vito," I heard Rose say in an icy tone.

Where did she come from?

"We've got it all on tape you psycho bastard," she continued. "So if I were you I'd better start thinking about who's bitch you wanna be in jail."

"You're not giving me any incentive to spare the girl," Aro mused, raising his hand a little so that the barrel of the gun now pointed to that exact spot on my forehead, right above my nose, that was sure to kill me in one shot.

Before he was able to fire Rose had lunged at him, landing on his back as her legs wrapped around him and her hands started clawing at his face and hands. The room filled with a load bang as the gun went off, the bullet whooshing inches past my face before it crashed into the wall.

"Now who needs saving asshole," Rose growled as she wrestled the godfather of Forks' organized crime to the ground and sat on his chest until one of the guys from the SWAT-team made it over to her to cuff him and read him his rights.

The only thing Aro's 'proud' army could do was stand to the side and watch as they were being held in check by the guys from the SWAT team. I could see Jane glaring daggers at each and every one of them and was relieved to see the guys were all wearing their helmets. God forbid the evil bitch would ever get out of prison. She'd go on a full fledged killing spree that would put even JK Rowling to shame. Her first victims would no doubt be the ones who'd forced her to surrender.

"Jesus Christ!" Edward yelled, his eyes flickering from Rose to me. "Are you two out of your fucking minds?"

"Rule number one in the angels handbook," Rose snickered, helping me up from my kneeling position on the floor. "The angels always have each other's back."

"I thought it was safety comes first?" I giggled, still trembling all over my body.

"Nah. That's just what Carlisle wants us to believe," Rose said, rolling her eyes.

"Tell that to the mother superior," I muttered, knowing the wrath of Bosley and Carlisle would be nothing compared to the scolding we were going to get from Alice.

"Hey!" Rose barked. "I have my own share of yelling to do when we get back to headquarters. Don't think you're safe just because Alice isn't here!"

"You're not going to do it tonight," Edward stated calmly, his eyes blazing with a myriad of emotions. "Bella is coming with me."

"Bella needs to debrief," Rose retorted, scrunching her eyes as she locked into a silent power struggle with Edward.

"Has anyone ever bothered to ask Bella what she wants?" I interrupted them.

"You don't get to speak," Edward replied, his voice betraying that underneath that smooth exterior he was far from calm. "You lost that right the moment you decided to go on this suicide mission."

Right.

I guess he had a point there.

"Shut up Bella," Rose added.

So I stood there like an idiot, waiting for the two of them to finish their mind games while the whole room around us was whirling with activity. People were being arrested left, right and center while forensics moved in to preserve every last bit of evidence that might be useful to their case. I half expected them to start swapping me for further proof as well, though they may like to steer clear from Edward and Rose right now if they wanted to leave the room without a Q-tip rammed up their rectum.

"Okay," Rose finally yielded. "But you'd better have her in Emmett's office by eight AM tomorrow or I'll tell your boss all about the real reasons behind this operation."

"Deal," Edward stated, grabbing my hand.

But before I was ready to leave this circle of hell there was something I had to do. The only revenge that was available to me at the moment.

I walked up to Aro and slapped him across the face before anyone could stop me. "Questo è il bacio di Isabella!" I sneered at him, rejoicing in the look of utter astonishment on his face. I was a little sad to see they'd already taken Jane downstairs. My jaw still hurt like hell and I would have loved to settle the score on that one.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Edward hissed though his teeth, pulling me out of the room.

Maybe my mind was playing tricks on me but I thought I saw a little smile on the evil bastards face just before he disappeared out of sight.

"Taking revenge," I stated, pursing my lips. "Tosca style."

"Foolish suicidal woman," he muttered, dragging me behind him into the elevator until we were well away from the bustling activity on the 21st floor. "Are you alright?" he asked, releasing my hand as he scrutinized my appearance.

"Yes," I whispered, taken aback by the intensity of his stare. "I might have some cuts and bruises but I'll live."

"Good," he growled as the elevator dinged to let us know we had reached the lobby . "We'll get you cleaned up at the hotel." He took my hand again and lead me out of the building, past the cop cars that had gathered in front of it to his own perpetually shiny Volvo.

"And don't think this is the end of it," he growled, helping me into the passenger seat. "I'm nowhere near done yelling at you."

"I know," I whispered, the enormity of my actions hitting me now that I was out of danger.

Somehow Rose and Edward had managed to get the police involved in this matter, arresting the Volturi before they had even worked up a decent case against them.

I could only imagine the strings they had had to pull to get them to do it on such a short notice.

I had been stupid, inconsiderate and childish and I wouldn't blame Edward if he never wanted anything to do with me once he was done yelling at me.

The fact that I had risked my job to get even with the Volturi was something I could live with. I loved being an angel but my family mattered more to me. Hurting Edward, however, was a whole different matter....

I had been so vain, thinking I was just going to moonwalk out of there with all the evidence I needed. If I wouldn't have let my foolish rage take over my brain I would have been able to see that all of this was a trap, set up to take the angels apart.

"Edward...."I started, needing to apologize.

"You don't get to speak yet," he ordered, his eyes fixed on the asphalt in front of him as he parked the car.

I waited for him to exit and walk around his car, knowing that now wasn't the moment to be an emancipated woman and get out by myself.

He didn't even wait for me to get up from my seat. His hands simply wrapped around me and lifted me out, bridal style, and never loosened their hold as he carried me through the lobby and into the elevator, only putting me back to my feet again when the doors slided closed.

The ride in the elevator was even worse than the whole car ride to the hotel. Edward stood in the corner of the small, enclosed space alternating between pinching the bridge of his nose, brushing his hand through his hair and looking to see if I was still okay.

I wondered if what happened would end us. I knew my feelings for him were strong – very strong – but I also knew I had done a terrible thing by running off into a suicide mission without leaving as much as a note. He had every right to dump me.

As soon as the doors opened again Edward wrapped his arms around me again, forming a protective cage around my body as we stumbled through the corridor to his room. He pushed me inside as soon as the door opened and switched on the lights as I stood in the middle of the room, unsure of how to act.

"Don't you. Ever. Do that. Again," he hissed, closing the door behind him.

"I'm so sorry Edward," I whispered. "I never......"

"No," he interrupted me, "I want you to promise. I want to hear you say those words. Say it out loud."

"I won't do it again," I said, looking straight into his still worried eyes.

He let out a huge breath of air, his body relaxing slightly now that he knew I wasn't going to barge head first into a suicide mission again. "You'd better not," he warned me, the anger still present in his voice and posture, "because I don't know what I'd do if I lost you."

"You won't," I promised, knowing full well how hollow that promise was. We were both in lines of business that entailed danger. I might have gotten lucky this time but who was to say I wouldn't die tomorrow while doing my job? Or, for that matter, he doing his?

The thought of losing Edward made me shudder with fear. I knew that if we were to make this work we'd have to find a way around those fears.

"I want to yell at you," he growled, still leaning against the door as he pinched the bridge of his nose.

"You're free to do so," I said, trying to keep myself from crying. "I deserve it."

"What good would it do?" he sighed, looking at me.

"It would make you feel better," I urged him. "Be angry, don't keep it all bottled up."

"Would it make you feel less guilty id I yelled at you?"

"It would," I admitted, "but that doesn't matter right now."

"You're bleeding," he muttered, looking at the wound above my eyebrow.

"It's nothing," I shrugged. "As I said...just some minor cuts and bruises."

"To think that if we'd been there only a minute later she would be death....." he whispered to himself.

"I'm sorry," I replied, walking to him and wrapping my arms around his waist, leaning my head on his chest. Breathing in his scent again felt good.

So good.

"You have no idea how terrified I was when Rose called," he whispered into my hair. "I thought I'd lost you."

"I thought so too," I sobbed, unable to hold back the tears. "Thank you so much for being on time."

"Thank you for staying alive," he whispered back, taking a step backwards before continuing in a more steadfast tone. "Now let's get you cleaned up."

He took my hand and led me into the adjoining bathroom, lifting me gently onto the counter before he rummaged through a cabinet in search of a first aid kit.

"I told you Edward," I chuckled, "I'm fine. No harm done."

"You have a nasty gash on your forehead and smaller cuts and bruises all over the rest of your body," he stated, sounding like the true former pre-med student. "I'm not letting you out of here before I cleaned every single last one of them."

He grabbed one of the towels that hung over the edge of the huge garden tub and held it under the tab. "This may sting a little," he apologized, carefully brushing the damp fabric over my wound.

I winced slightly as the cloth made contact with my injured flesh.

"Sorry," he muttered, still focused on tending to my injury. "There....all done."

"What's the damage doctor?" I purred, suddenly noticing the advantages of the position I was currently in.

"You'll live," he chuckled, though I noticed his voice had dropped to a more husky tone. "But I still need to examine the rest of your body for injuries......and of course you need to be watched....very closely to make sure you are alright."

"If that's what it takes to get well again," I whispered, wrapping my legs around his waist and pulling him to me, "I'll do whatever you say."

"Whatever I say?" he replied with a mischievous lopsided grin.

Unable to resist any longer I hungrily crashed my lips to his, our tongues finding one another almost instantly and starting their battle for control. This kiss was nothing like the ones we had shared before. It was frenzied, passionate, like a downing man clutching at a raft. It was our bodies reconnecting after they thought they had lost each other forever.

"Whatever." kiss. "It." kiss. "Takes," I panted against his lips.

"I need you Bella," he growled, his grip on my waist tightening. "God how I need you."

"Then have me," I stated, looking into his lust filled eyes.

He lifted me off the counter and stumbled backwards out of the bathroom and in the direction of his bed, where he placed me gently on the comforter.

The atmosphere around us changed the moment we had left the bathroom, the crackling sparks of before being replaced with something much stronger.

Sparks flared up and died so soon they almost went by unnoticed.

This was different, more potent. It was like an electrical current, a tingling sensation that started in one place but slowly spread further and further until it made your whole being shaky, crying out for release.

He took off his shoes and mine before joining me on the bed, his hips straddling mine as he started opening the buttons on my blouse, his hands touching my heated skin every chance they had.

He let out a feral hiss when he saw the bruises that covered my upper arms and chest as the fabric glided away from my body.

"It's nothing," I soothed, sitting up to pull his shirt over his head. "I hardly feel a thing."

That wasn't entirely the true though, truth be told, right now I wouldn't even be bothered by an arterial bleeding as long as Edwards hands kept wandering over my body.

"I wish I would have killed that piece of scum when I had the chance," he growled, his body tensing again.

"It doesn't matter now," I whispered, my hands familiarizing themselves with the smooth, muscular surface of Edwards chest again. "All that matters is us," I added, kissing his shoulder.

"All that matters is us," he repeated, the tension slipping away again as he looked at me and nodded.

His hands moved to the buttons on my jeans, nimbly opening them and removing the fabric from my legs, leaving me in just my plain dark blue underwear.

His hands trailed over my legs, searching them for injures before he leaned in and place a soft, gentle kiss on the center of my stomach.

"Are you sure about this?" he asked, his green eyes scorching into mine through a few errant stands of his messy bronze hair.

I almost laughed at the thought of it. I wasn't the one who was supposed to be having second thoughts about it.

"Yes," I breathed, already short of breath when we hadn't even started yet. "More sure than I have ever been about anything else."

I was so going to die.

But damn! It would be worth it.

"Good," he growled against my lips, claiming them in a kiss that made my whole body come alive, "because I'm not sure if I will be able to stop right now," he panted, kissing a trail from my lips to the swell of my breast."

How did he always know just what to say to get me worked up into a fucking frenzy? I swear, if he bottled whatever mojo it was that he possessed he would be making a fortune.

"You're so beautiful Bella," he sighed, his eyed traveling over my body.

I blushed. Even though I knew he was just saying things that weren't true, whenever he said them it felt like they were. Right now I felt like the most beautiful woman in the world.

All because of him.

Because he had showed me grace even when I didn't deserve it.

Because I loved him with all that I had.

And because he loved me.

I leaned up, allowing him to unfasten the clasp of my bra, letting the straps dangle off my shoulders as the fabric fell away from my chest.

"Beautiful," he repeated, cupping my mounds in his hands before taking the puckered tips in his mouth and kissing and nipping at them one by one, making me elicit all kinds of incoherent guttural sounds.

I clasped my hand over my mouth in embarrassment, not wanting to make him laugh at me or turn him off.

"Don't you dare," he growled, removing my hand. "I want to hear you scream my name. Before I'm done with you you'll come so hard you won't be able to even speak anymore."

_Already there buddie!_

His words send pleasant shivers through my body and I moaned as his capable hands resumed their task.

When he was satisfied my breast had been payed enough attention he moved down, kissing my wetness through the damp fabric of my panties.

The sight of his unruly mop of bronze sex hair resting between my legs did nothing for my composure, though I guessed that all etiquette would have gone flying out the window the moment his very talented tongue reacquainted itself with my throbbing center anyway.

He nudged at my panties with his teeth, slowly lowering the fabric from my hips and down my legs before crawling up again, his fingers parting my wet folds before slipping into me and moving out a an excruciatingly slow pace.

"Please...." I panted, "faster."

"Whatever the lady wants," he chuckled, looking up at me with that deadly crooked grin of his before his attention reverted back to his hands. I moaned as I felt his mouth on me, kissing and nipping at my swollen bundle of nerves.

"You taste so fucking amazing Bella," he hummed against my core, his words vibrating through my body.

"Dear God," I panted, digging my heals into the mattress to get some sort of hold on the world. "Edward!"

He must have felt how close I was because the next thing I knew he bended his fingers inside of me, hitting just the right spot to send me soaring into my orgasm, screaming his name as I came.

"I love you," I whispered, amazed at my own ability to produce actual words.

"I love you too," he purred, kissing his way up my stomach until finally his lips reached mine. I wrapped my legs around his, moaning as the combined taste of him and me hit my pallet. I never wanted this moment to end, but I also wanted him to feel just as good as I was feeling at that moment.

Without breaking the kiss I turned us around, pushing his back down onto the mattress as my hands traveled towards his abdomen, stroking him softly through the fabric of his pants. Unable to drag this out any longer my hands made quick work of his pants, unfastening the button and zipper and tearing the damn thing from his legs before flinging it into a corner as my hands settled on the waistband of his boxers.

He sprang forward, proud and erect as soon as I lowered his boxers from his hips. One of my hands closed around his shaft, using the drops of fluid gathered on the tips as lubricant as I moved up and down in a slow pace, while the other clumsily moved his boxers the rest of the way down.

"God Bella, you're killing me," he hissed. "Please....I need to be inside you."

"Your wish...my command," I smiled as I straddled his waist, my hand wrapping around him again and guiding his cock to my entrance.

I could feel my body stretching as I lowered myself onto him. He was a lot more gifted than all of the other idiots I had been with so far, though having him enclosed within me didn't feel painful or weird or anything. It felt right. Like my body was made to accommodate him. Every amazing inch of him.

I held still for a little while, both of us needing the time to adjust to this new feeling of closeness. When I got used to it I started to move slowly up and down his shaft, placing my hands on his shoulders to steady myself.

The sight of him, his green eyes hooded with lust and pleasure because of what we were doing, almost made me come undone right there and then.

"I love you," I whispered, brushing a few locks of hair out of his face.

"I love you too Bella," he said, sitting up as his lips connected hungrily with mine. Our new position made him hit new spaces inside of me and I cried out as he moved with me, his hips thrusting upwards as mine moved down.

It wasn't long until I felt myself teetering on the edge of heaven

"Let go Bella," he ordered, biting down softly on the skin at the base of my neck.

"Oh God!" I moaned, as I leaped over the edge, the universe exploding in front of my eyes as I rose out my orgasm.

"Fuck," Edward hissed, his cock pulsing inside of me as he followed me over the edge.

I collapsed on top of him, both of our bodies tumbling onto the mattress as we lay panting for breath.

"That was...." I started, searching for the right words.

"Fucking amazing," Edward added.

"Yeah," I said, feeling utterly spend at the moment. "Wanna do it again?"

"More than anything in the world," he grinned. "But you need your sleep."

I let out a dissatisfied groan at his words. Who needed sleep when you could have Edward?

"Go to sleep Bella," he chuckled, his body leaving mine as he moved us under the warmth of the comforter. "You need it."

"But...." I protested, not wanting this night to end so soon.

"There is always tomorrow," he purred, biting down softly on my earlobe. "You haven't had a decent nights sleep in three days and believe me....you need to be well rested for the things I want to do to you tomorrow."

His words sent a shiver through me that jolted straight to my core, arousal already starting to pool in between my legs again.

"How the fuck is a girl ever to go to sleep if you make promises like that," I muttered.

"I thought that with the exercise I just gave you, you wouldn't be that hard pressed to go to sleep."

"Don't let it go to your head," I growled, struggling to keep my eyes open as I snuggled into his chest.

"You are already in there," he chuckled, nuzzling my hair.

"So what went on in the real world while I was off playing superman?" I asked, changing the subject. All this talk of sex had me pretty worked up again already, even though the rest of me, the part that wasn't thinking like a horny fourteen year old boy, was screaming at me to get some rest.

"Not much good," Edward sighed, one of his hands playing with a strand of my hair. "The virus may be out in the open."

"What?" I lifted myself up to look at his face. It was completely serious again, like it had been when we talked earlier.

"The police received a call earlier today reporting a man wandering around the mall seemingly under the influence of some kind of narcotic. When they arrived on scene they found the guy, collapsed on the floor in the middle of the mall bleeding profusely from his mouth and nose, a crowd of spectators gathered around him."

"And they think it's the virus?"

"They aren't sure yet but the symptoms indicate it is," Edward nodded, his arms tightening around me.

"What happened to the guy?" I asked.

"He flatlined soon after they brought him in," Edward explained. I nodded, knowing there was no coming back from the Spanish flu.

"Have you spoken to Carlisle about it?" I asked.

"We were in the middle of it when Rose called," Edward replied. I cringed, knowing what had disturbed their meeting. "Carlisle wanted to wait until Alice called in with the information she managed to gather from her trip to Seattle."

"Wait......" I muttered. "Why didn't you call Alice?"

This didn't make sense. If they wanted to find out about the virus why wait for Alice to call in when you could call her and know the answer to your questions within five minutes?

"We did," Edward replied, his hand softly stroking my bare back, "but her cell was switched off."

"That's odd," I frowned. "Alice never switches off her phone."

"Perhaps she had something else to do," Edward shrugged, kissing my frown away. "Don't worry Bella. They have all of the people who came into contact with the victim under observation. So far the virus seems to have been limited to just this one guy."

"But......."

"You need to rest now," Edward ordered, the tone in which he spoke telling me that resistance was futile. "Sleep, my Bella."

As I placed my head back on his chest he started humming a foreign tune, the melody so soft and soothing that it had me drifting off into a deep slumber before I knew it.

I felt like I was in heaven.

* * *

_**And with that, my dears, we slowly stumble towards the grand finale. **_

_**Don't think Edward is done being angry with Bella for the stunt she pulled. He just chose relief and reaffirmation over anger this time. **_

_**Next chapter will be in Alice's POV and we'll find out why Edward was unable to get in touch with her. The chapter may be up a little later than usual though, since it has to go through a major rewrite (continuity issues) and I have a very busy weekend ahead of me.**_


	23. Unintended

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

* * *

**_Please note: this chapter takes place on the same day as the Volturi chapters. Alice doesn't know anything about what happens in chapters 20-22 yet._**

* * *

**Unintended.**

_**(Alice Brandon)**_

Hmm.

Major dilemma.

I was standing in front of my closet looking utterly lost for the first time in my life.

What does one wear on a trip to a pharmaceutical company?

Green seemed too easy and obvious but pink – my personal favorite – might be too bright. And what about hemlines? Was there some sort of social code for visiting laboratories? Damn! This was harder than I thought.

I hated moments like these, when clothes caused me to feel uncertain about stuff. Clothes were meant to make you feel happy or confident or sexy.

Clothes were meant to boost. Not to deflate.

Too bad the girls didn't appreciate nice things like I did. Bella wouldn't know vintage Balmain from a ratty potato sack even if it slapper her in the face and Rose only liked designer clothes because of the labels and the status it gave to her. Rose was all about status. It was what she had been raised to be.....a walking, talking status symbol.

In the end I decided to follow my feeling and just go with a lavender colored blouse and a pair of black, straight fit pants. You could never go wrong with that, especially not if the pants were made by Karl Lagerfeld.

It'll teach her not to mess with the fashion fairy.

Nothing like a classic French-German cooperation to remedy the fact that I was one-upped by that scary Mexican woman and her two Italians yesterday. If I had known the woman was able to pull off a Gucci dress and Prada shoes like that I would have countered with something equally fierce.

Even in spite of the confident feeling my clothes gave me I had a bad feeling about today. Something bad was going to happen. I knew it. If only I knew what it was......

For God's sake people! Make up your minds so this girl can have a little piece of mind!

Sometimes I really hated my gift, not just because it had exposed me to all kinds of hateful behavior in the past, but because it was so unreliable at times. The future was never set in stone, I knew that phrase all too well, but every now and then a girl would really appreciate knowing what she was stepping into.

All I had about today was a feeling that I needed to wear pants and a hunch that there was going to be some fighting involved.

I really missed talking to Esme at moments such as these. She had been like the mother I never had, even though we differed only ten years in age. She had taken me in when I had been at my worst and carefully nurtured and supported me until I was strong enough to become an angel myself, something I never would have held possible when I left the hospital. She had given me more love in a day than my birth parents had shown me in my entire live and I could never thank her enough for it. It had made me see the light where there had only been darkness before. I hoped she and Carlisle had some kids of their own now, even though I had never been able to see them in my visions.

At least she was happy. I knew that. I had always known that.

I don't think she realized just how much I had guessed about her relationship with Carlisle just from watching her whenever Carlisle called and – of course – the very strong visions I had of her and this blurry man living happily ever after.

I chuckled to myself as I remembered them. Even my visions hadn't enabled me to see Carlisle's face.

I was the only one who wasn't completely shocked when Esme Evenson disappeared off the face of the earth only days after she had resigned from her job as an angel. While the others did everything in their power to find her, fearing she had fallen prey to one of the ghosts of her past, I just left her a message on her mobile, wishing her all possible joy and happiness in her new life.

Esme.

If only I could talk to her now.

I knew why she wasn't able to contact us. Carlisle's secret was to important to risk. Hell, they had taken a big enough risk as it was by falling in love and starting out on their life together. I knew Esme had probably been heartbroken about having to leave us like a thief in the night and never being able to contact us since then, but I understood why she had to do it. If it had been me, I would have done the same.

It had been Esme herself who suggested I take over her place when she was gone. I remembered the fights it had caused. Victoria hadn't been happy......I knew she had probably assumed that – being the most experienced angel – she would have been the one in charge. I understood why Carlisle and Bosley had decided against it though.....She was too emotional, so much so that it turned her into a loose cannon at times. Sometimes Bella really reminded me of her.

I wondered what had come of Victoria after she left. Like Esme she had simply vanished, though even before that she had been virtually unreachable. It had all started at the hospital. It was like someone had been trying to keep us away from her. Every time we called or went to visit her they told us she was resting or that her doctor was with her.

I remembered how she had looked that day when she returned only to resign effective immediately. She had looked so angry, almost violent. It was as if she had blamed us for what had happened to her. I should have reached out to her that day. I should have said something. I guess I had just been in shock or thought that there would come a better time to talk to her.

I checked my appearance in the mirror one final time before I left my room. I looked nice. Professional. Responsible. Better than Maria had looked yesterday.

As I walked out of my room I noticed Bella's door was open, her bed looking like it hadn't been slept in.

Good.

I loved that Bella was happy again and after everything that she and Edward had gone through over the last couple of days they deserved some quality time together. As long as the girl filled me in on the specifics when she got home.

Rose's door was still closed but, judging by the sounds I had heard when Bosley and she came home last night, I really didn't want to know what was going on behind that particular door.

A sad feeling came over me when I closed the front door of our apartment behind me, remembering the many angels I had seen coming and going over the years, both as the angels' official mascot and as an angel myself. They had all gone on to pastures new. Some of them in pursuit of a new career, most of them because they had met the man of their dreams.

I sighed, knowing that soon I would have probably have to train two new colleagues.

Not that I resented Rose and Bella for finally finding the men of their dreams. It was just that loosing them would break my heart. Of all the angels I had seen they were the most precious to me. Well, apart from Esme.

I wondered what my life would be like after Rose and Bella were gone. How long would I be able to do this job? I knew it couldn't be long but no other angel had ever stayed around long enough to give me any indication of what the sell by date of an elite crime fighter was.

If only I could find my own happily ever after.

Hell, at this point in life I would even settle for some kind of resolve in life. I was too much of a realist to think there was a man out there who would accept me, crazy warts and all, but I would like to know if there was something that could keep me happy and busy when I could no longer chase after bad guys.

Perhaps being some corporate guy's assistant wouldn't be that bad a career option after all. I had rather liked being one yesterday, even if the medical convention had been boring as hell.

Yes. I could see myself doing that.

I hailed a cab, expelling the depressing thoughts out of my head with some happy music as I made my way over to the hotel where Whitlock was staying at. At least today's little excursion would take my mind of the future.

--

He was sitting at the same spot his secretary had occupied yesterday, rifling through an impressive looking stack of papers, his eyebrows scrunched up in concentration.

"Ah, you're here," he said, his eyes lighting up as he noticed me. "There's been a slight change of plans?"

"What?" I asked, scrunching my eyebrows. What did he mean a slight change of plans? Would be still be going to Seattle today? Would I be dressed appropriately for this 'slight change of plans?'"

"Something came up at the office and to make a long story short I have to go meet some people from the bank today to figure some stuff out," he said, trying to make light of the matter though his face told me there was nothing light about it.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing much," he shrugged. "The change in the economy has made some investors pull out of the vaccination program which means we're running a little low on funds. I'm meeting up with some of my financial advisors to see how we can fix this."

"People are actually cutting down on charities like this?" I asked, my voice betraying my outrage. Sure, I could see how big companies wouldn't want to pump millions into some football team or stop sponsoring the local dance marathon – though it would really blow for the people depending on the money – but that people would actually let other people die when they had enough money to stop it made me sad.

"It's business," Whitlock sighed. "The major companies that are pulling out don't think of it as saving people, they think of it in terms of public relations. Everything is money to them."

"Sick fucks," I huffed.

"My sentiments exactly," he said, smiling slightly at my anger. "But what can you do about it?"

"I'd better get back to the office then," I smiled, turning towards the door again.

"What for?" he asked. "I'm still taking you to see the lab."

"I thought you said you were going to be in a meeting all afternoon?"

"Well, there's always tomorrow," he shrugged. "I have to get back here by eight for a dinner meeting but the rest of the day is all yours."

"I don't have any clothes," I said, the prospect of spending so much time with the guy stirring an odd mixture of feelings within me. Happiness. Fear. Anger. Something else. Something new I couldn't quite name.......I shook it aside, not wanting to let my feelings distract me. At least this would give me an opportunity to study the guy and verify once and of all if he was one of the bad guys.

"There's clothes in Seattle," he shrugged. "My car and driver driver are at your disposal all afternoon and since I am shamelessly dropping this whole thing on you I think it's no more than fair that I cover all of your expenses as well."

I snickered. For all his knowledge about diseases and whatnot the boy sure was stupid when it came to credit cards, women and shopping. He wouldn't know what hit him when he got the receipt for this.

"Are you sure?" I asked. "I have been known to take my shopping very seriously."

"Then by all means I urge you to explore the fine things Seattle has to offer you," he chuckled, showing the cutest little dimples in the world. He rose from the couch and I had to fight with everything I had in me to keep myself from ogling him like he was a fine piece of meat.

Well admit it Alice....he is a fine piece of meat.

Now where did that come from?

I shook my head, trying to put a stop to the insane discussion that was raging in my head. It was probably the suit that did it. I could never resist a man in a suit. Especially not the perfectly tailored dark grey suit which I strongly suspected to have been made by Armani and a shirt underneath it that matched the greenish blue color of his eyes perfectly.

Damn! How did he find out my one weakness?

"Shall we get going?" I asked, trying to prevent myself from having too many nice thoughts about this guy. He was supposed to be my enemy and you didn't have nice thoughts about your enemy. Well.....not unless you suffered from the Stockholm Syndrome and I most definitely wasn't going to go Stockholm on his ass.

"Sure, " he shrugged, pulling on a leather jacket. "Here, let me take this from you." He gently took my bag from my hands.

"Thank you mr. Whitlock," I whispered, glad that I always left the house well prepared for any occasion that might arise. Not only did my bag hold the essentials – notebook, pen, mobile phone, tampons, pepperspray, knuckles, master key and whatnot – I had also brought a bag of toiletries and a fresh pair of panties with me. You never knew when you needed them.

"It's Jasper," he said, blushing slightly. "I'd really like for you to call me Jasper."

"Jasper," I repeated, not liking the smooth way his name rolled off my tongue at all. It was far to nice a name for a bastard such as him.

But that was just the thing. Was he really such a bastard? I was beginning to doubt it.

Crap.

There goes another certainty in life.

"I thought we'd use a different mode of transportation today, if you don't mind," he said as he pushed the uppermost button on the elevator.

"And what might that be?" I wondered.

Before he could answer my question though, the doors of the elevator slided open and my eyes were blinded by the light. As I got adjusted to the unnaturally bright sky above Forks I noticed we were on the roof of the hotel and currently facing a dark metal object balancing on an elevation.

Oh. My. God. Was that what I thought it was?

"Have you ever flown in a helicopter before?" Jasper asked, guiding me in the direction of the small flying death trap resting on the roof of the hotel.

"No," I admitted. "But it can't be too different from flying in a small airplane right?"

"Right," he chuckled, giving me the distinct impression that it was a whole lot different from flying in a small airplane.

"Where is the pilot?" I asked as we walked up to the helicopter platform. I didn't know the first thing about helicopters but what I did know was that you needed someone to operate the controls. Someone who knew what he or she was doing.

"You're talking to him," he chuckled.

"What?" I yelled, thinking I must have misunderstood.

"I'm a fully certified helicopter pilot," he explained, tugging me over to the casket of death. "I figured that I might as well learn to fly the darn thing myself if I was going to fly around in it all the time."

Right.

That sounded logical.

"So you're going to fly us al the way to Seattle?' I asked, sounding more like a frightened kid than a kickass undercover agent.

He nodded, smiling a devious little smile at me as he pulled a pair of large aviator sunglasses out of his jacket pocket.

Oh hell.

I tried not to think about the fact that for the next hour or so I would be trapped in a small box, delivered at the mercy of the son of the guy who used to torture me.

Nope. Didn't work.

"We could just take the car if you're scared to fly," he shrugged, moving away from the helicopter.

Oh Hell. Alice Brandon didn't back away in the sight of danger.

I couldn't live with myself if I did.

"No, the helicopter would be fine," I said, trying to sound as convincing as I could be.

I failed miserably.

"Trust me," he laughed, leaning in a little too close for comfort. "I would never let you come to any harm." He pulled back again, winking at me as he casually leaned against the helicopter.

What the fuck? Was he flirting with me?

He? Son of a bitch Whitlock junior?

The most astounding thing about all of it was that part of me really liked it.

Old man Whitlock must have been right all along. I definitely was a fruitcake.

"Thanks," I muttered before almost diving into the flying death trap head first. Anything to get away from him. It didn't work though, since he was going to be enclosed in this tiny casket of doom with me for the next hour or so.

He made sure I was buckled in properly and gave me one of those headphone thingies that completely screw up your hair but allow you to talk to someone before starting up the helicopter and taking off.

I had to admit, being in a helicopter kind of rocked.

If you could get over the thundering noise of the propellers and the way the damn thing shook with every unexpected gush of wind it encountered it really was like you were flying, more so than in a regular plane.

For a moment I was even able to forget the fact that I was trapped in a flying deathmobile with the spawn of doctor Evil, my mind too full with the beautiful scenery that flew by as we flew over the Pacific Peninsula.

"I take it you like this mode of transportation?" Jasper chuckled, no doubt noticing the huge smile that was plastered on my face.

"I do!" I squealed, taking in his profile as he flew the plane.

He looked...good.

Happy.

I quickly looked out of the window again, confused by the myriad of feelings floating around my brain, refocusing my attention on the landscape whirling by underneath us instead. No good could come out of liking the guy, or so I thought. It would only complicate things. Hate was easy.

Hate was safe.

Before I knew it we were nearing Seattle, the outskirts of the town coming closer and closer as Jasper made the helicopter diminish speed and height.

"Are you sure there's a place to land somewhere around here?" I asked, my voice betraying my fear as I saw the high rise buildings of downtown Seattle coming awfully close. I wondered how tiny a smudge my poor body would leave on the outside of one of those glass monstrosities.

Tiny, I predicted.

"Don't worry, miss Brandon," Jasper chuckled, his dimples peaking out from under his huge aviator sunglasses. "I've got it covered. You see?" He pointed at a building in front of us, a huge white X marking the yellow helicopter platform on top of it. "X marks the spot."

"Just keep your hands on the steering wheel," I huffed. "What is this place anyway?"

"Just let me land this puppy and I'll show you," he said, concentrating as he steered the flying death trap smoothly towards the platform.

"You okay there?" he inquired as he switched off the controls. "You're seeing a little green?"

"I'm fine," I squeaked, my guts slowly settling down again. As nice as the rest of the trip had been, landing in a helicopter sure wasn't my favorite thing to do.

"Let me help you," he said, jumping out of his seat and walking around the death trap as the propellers slowly came to a halt above us. "Take my hand," he urged, wrapping one arm around me as my trembling fingers fought with the buckles. "Can you stand?"

"I think so...." I muttered wobbling out of the thing and taking a few shaky steps.

"Just take a few deep breaths and you'll be fine."

"So do you want to tell me where we are?" I said, fixing my gaze on the horizon and breathing in the exhaust fumes of the big city.

"My place," he said, looking at his feet as if he was afraid I was going to bitch slap him.

"Your place?" I questioned, folding my arms in front of my chest.

"I'm not assuming anything," he said, waving his arms in front of him in surrender. "I just couldn't decide on what kind of hotel you'd like and then Jessica suggested putting you up in the spare bedroom and I though that was a good idea and.........oh my God I'm an idiot aren't I?"

"You are," I chuckled, actually starting to feel sorry for the guy. "But you're as charming an idiot as they come."

"Why thank you ma'am," he drawled, tipping his non-existent hat. "I can still take you to a hotel if the thought of staying in my spare bedroom revolts you.....or makes you want to murder me in my sleep."

"I really did make an impression on you didn't I?" I laughed.

"I'll be the first to admit that you can be kind of scary," he snickered, leading me towards the elevator.

"I'll stay," I said, my voice sounding braver than I actually felt. "Even if it's just to proof that I can be perfectly well behaved when I put my mind to it."

"It's an honor to have you, miss," he chuckled, pressing the button to go down.

Right.

Was I really making the right decision or would it be wiser to run for the hills?

--

"What's a Southern boy like you doing so far up north?" I asked, savoring a bite of my salad. We were sitting down to lunch at the big wooden table in the huge open plan living space of Jaspers apartment.

I had to admit I liked his house. A lot. One look at it told me the place had been decorated by a woman – probably an interior designer – but with a male's perspective in mind. The living area was a huge open space, lined with windows on one side, decorated in whites and dark woods in a clean, minimalist style. It looked neat and tidy but with enough of Jaspers stuff – his books, his guitar and his ginormous collection of LP records – lying about to not make it feel like you were sitting in some kind of showroom.

"Just getting away from some nasty stuff that happened back home," he sighed. "I told you about my dad right?"

"Yes."

"Well......when the whole thing came out I felt so ashamed. I didn't want anything to do with the sham my life had been before it blew up in my face so I transferred to a university as far away from home as I could get. It turned out to be Seattle."

"And do you like it here?" I asked, not wanting to think about the stuff that made him leave home.

"Sort of," he shrugged. "I'm not around that often and when I am, works seems to keep me pretty busy but I guess the city is okay."

"You travel a lot?"

"It comes with the job," he said. "When I started out I had this romantic idea of being cooped up in the lab all day, preforming groundbreaking medicine and curing the world. I found out soon that most groundbreaking acts actually happen at conferences and in offices. It's where the deals are being made." He looked a little sad as he told me this. "I don't think I saw a lab from the inside ever since I started the vaccination program."

"Not even when you're in Seattle?"

"Nope," he said with a sad smile. "When I get back home after being in the field or at some conference there's always a huge stack of paperwork waiting for me. As soon as the end of that's in sight I have to get ready for my next trip again."

"That sounds like a bit of a letdown."

"I got used to it," he shrugged. "Turns out I have kind of a knack for convincing people to see things my way....."

Tell me about it.

"You don't regret not being able to do stuff in the lab yourself?" I asked.

"Not really," he answered. "And Maria is much better at running the lab than I was anyway."

Again with Maria.

"So she pretty much gets free range over the lab?"

"I guess so," he said tentatively. "I still get reports on everything that's going on at the lab every week though."

"And Maria writes those reports?"

"Lady, you have to give me a little more credit than that!" he chuckled, his southern twang more obvious when he was amused. "Someone else writes them."

"Right," I blushed, looking down at my plate again.

"Not that there's much to tell," Jasper shrugged. "Things have been slow lately."

"Due to the economy?"

"Not entirely," he explained. "Most of the production work is done by machines nowadays. We've still got a couple of people from R & D stewing on more adequate and cost-effective vaccine for H5N1 than the one that's being used today but for the rest it's pretty slow." He shrugged. "I guess we need a big outbreak of some new disease to keep us busy."

I almost sprayed my drink all over his nice suit. What did he just say?

"I'm sorry," he quickly apologized. "That was awfully misplaced."

You could say that again.

He glanced away embarrassed, looking at the clock over my shoulder instead. "I should get going," he sighed, seeming a little relieved to get away from me. "Now I know personal assistants usually join their bosses for those kind of events and all but I think you'd be bored to death and......"

"That it would be better for me to sit this one out?" I added.

"Yeah," he chuckled, obviously relieved that I wasn't angry. "That was the gist of what I was going to say. And you need to get yourself some supplies anyway. I've arranged for a towncar to pick you up in an hour. I could call them to ask them to come sooner........"

"Not, that's alright," I smiled. "It gives me some time to freshen up."

"Ah, right," he said, scratching the back of his head. "I guess I'd better show you your room then."

He motioned for me to follow him back into the foyer and down the hallway leading off from it until we stopped in front of a door near the end. "Are you still sure this is alright?" he asked, scrutinizing my face for any signs of displeasure or unease. "I'd be perfectly happy to book you a room in any hotel in town if this makes you feel uncomfortable."

"It's okay," I said, trying to smile. Not that I wouldn't be locking my door tonight, but being here was more comfortable than I would ever have imagined.

It would also be the perfect opportunity to snoop around a little. I mean...my gut told me I could trust this Whitlock guy but my gut had always been pretty talkative and it was no secret my gut was very well pleased with Jasper Whitlock.

My head was a little more hesitant though. It wanted proof.

"Wow." It was all I could say when I stepped through the door.

Wow.

Like the rest of the house the guest bedroom was decorated in whites and dark wood, a huge wooden canopy bed with thin white curtains hanging around it taking up most of the space. It looked like every woman's dream.

"I take it the room can bear your seal of approval?" Jasper chuckled at my enthusiasm.

"You can say that again!" I laughed, walking over to the house floor to ceiling windows to take in the view over Seattle.

"I really have to go now," he sighed. "Are you sure you'll be alright?"

"Perfectly," I shrugged. "Now go bore the shit out of the bankers until they give you their money."

"Will do," he said, saluting me before he left. "Have fun cleaning out the shops."

I chuckled. I guess he knew me better than I gave him credit for.

I gave myself a quick once over, making sure I would be ready to go when the driver arrived, before going back into the hallway, opening doors to see what was behind them. Strangely enough none of them was locked meaning that either Jasper didn't think I would be so impolite as to snoop around, or he didn't have anything to hide from me.

Neither of those explanations made sense to me.

The final door I tried belonged to a home office, decorated in the same style as the rest of the house though far more cluttered than all the other rooms combined. It was clear to see which room Jasper spend most of his time in when he was here.

There were a few photographs standing in the bookcase though, much to my relief, none of them showed his father. Most of them were of Jasper with an older woman – probably his mom – or his friends.

I slowly made my way over to the desk and the pile of papers assembled on top of it. Going through his stuff felt bad, worse than I had ever felt on the job, but it had to be done. I had to see if I could get any information out of this place.

On top of the pile was a red folder that, judging from the cover, held one of the R&D update reports Jasper had told me about earlier.

Bingo!

Just the kind of stuff I was looking for.

I opened the folder and started looking over the pages. Boring numbers. Boring lab speak. Why did corporate people always have to use language that was virtually unintelligible for anyone outside their little world?

Wait a minute......

I rifled through the report again, checking the pages and the update reports. For a lab that – according to Jasper – was only supposed to be carrying out minor experiments while half the lab technicians was standing by and eating out of their noses there sure as hell appeared to be an awful lot of activity over there.

I leaned over the table, once again cursing my parents for not letting me go to school and learn useful stuff like math and economics, while I tried to get my head around the figures.

Something was wrong here......

I saw the image of me lying unconscious on the floor before I heard the whooshing movement of something sweeping though the air behind me and the resounding thud of a heavy instrument landing on my head.

Then everything went dark.

* * *

_**So if you're thinking: "What the fuck? A whole chapter dedicated to Jaspers dimples when we have a plot to get on with. Is she out of her mind?" Well, join the club, I'm thinking of designing t-shirts. Basically when I went through some stuff last Friday I found out that Alice's story was running one day behind on the rest of the characters. I had to fix that even though I had the rest of Alice's story already written and ready to go. Since nothing really big could happen it became this. I'm sorry, I hate this chapter as well, though it strangely makes the outline of the story get better. Imagine the words that came out of my mouth when I realized my stupid mistake. They made James in chapter 4 seem like a cute little boyscout.**_

_**Speaking of James. He kind of headbutted his way back into the story and demanded another chapter of his own which is going to be the next one. We'll also see who it was that clubbed Alice on the head though I think you can guess. **_

_**The next chapter should be up on Monday, provided I can wrestle myself through the massive pile of papers and tests that occupies my desk at the moment.**_


	24. Firestarter

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

* * *

**Just a little waring: this chapter is told by James so expect a lot of language and just generally sick thoughts.**

* * *

**Firestarter**

_**(James Midnight)**_

Fuck.

I watched on from my car as they brought out the first of the Volturi guard. What was supposed to have been our first success on the angels-front turned out to be a complete failure. Yet again.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

"Fuck," Victoria hissed beside me. Apparently she shared my feelings.

"Got any other good plans?" I sneered.

"Don't be an asshole," she snarled.

"Then don't promise me a failsafe plan," I spat back.

"I did no such thing," she huffed as I pulled out of the parking space. I had seen enough for now.

"You told me that if I left things to you, you'd take care of the angels."

"And I will, trust me. I will kill each and every one of Carlisle's whores even if it's the last thing I do."

"Famous last words," I muttered.

"Asshole," she growled looking out of the window, her red hair cascading around her face like a ring of fire..

The rest of the trip back home was silent, both of us thinking of new ways to kill the Swan girl. How the fuck did this girl manage to evade death so often? It wasn't like we hadn't tried....

Usually I'd enjoy the fuck out of this kind of this shit. I was never one to back away from a good challenge, especially not if it involved a price as desirable as her. This time, however, I had bigger fish to fry and the Swan girl was standing in the way of me frying those damn fish.

What was it with those fucking girls? I mean...the girl had had her fifteen minutes of fucking fame. Why couldn't she just be a good sport and fucking die already?

She seemed like such an easy target on paper. She was strong but also very emotional. The right amount of pressure and pain would tick her off beyond reason and turn her into the easiest fucking target on the planet.

Or so we had thought.

The point was that though she did manage to get into trouble, she also had some freakish fucking talent of getting out of it.

Three times we had tried already.

Three times we had failed.

The first time, back at the hospital, had been a lucky shot though one I couldn't stop beating myself up about. I had been cocky – too damn cocky – to think I could just walk in there unprotected and strike up a conversation with Whitlock junior. I had thought myself safe with Maria by his side and the cream of Washington's medical world standing around me. Of course they had to show up and ruin fucking everything.

I let out a frustrated growl at the thought of how close I had been to failure. If that Swan girl and that idiot she was with hadn't been so fucking distracted with their foreplay my whole plan might have blown up in my face that night.

Ten fucking years down the drain.

The only good thing about that night was that I had gotten a glimpse of her.

Rachel Lee.

She was still the same. A beautiful creature from another world with eyes that saw a truth no other person on this earth would ever know. She was heaven and hell all wrapped into one tiny, fragile little body.

I had to have her.

I had to own her.

I had to find out how she did it.

I had always had a fascination for the human mind and all its abnormalities. It was why I had volunteered to be old man Whitlock's little bitch years ago. It brought me closer to the freaks. Closer to understanding the brain and all its anomalies.

Finding out the old man shared my preference for science that somewhat skirted the edges of social acceptance had been my lucky day. I almost came that day Whitlock had showed me his special little room and explained how he wanted to make the world a better place by testing his new inventions on some of the girls.

Of course I had to wait patiently to gather enough evidence to put my own little plan to good use. Whitlock didn't share my particular fascination for the effects of pain on the human psyche, he did what he did out of some fucked up sense of doing good. The sick son of a bitch really thought those girls were glad to play a role towards helping to make the world a better – and more sane – place to live in.

Fucking freak!

The day I had approached them with my own little plan had been one of the happiest in my life. Not only had the pupil outsmarted the master on basically every fucking level, it also gave me free range to use the girls as I wanted.

The look of horror on the old man's face when I told him he would turn a blind eye to whatever the fuck he saw going on at night was fucking priceless. He must have thought I was the fucking Antichrist or something. There wasn't shit he could do about it though. I had his balls in my hand – well, metaphorically speaking – and the moment he would blab to anyone I would deliver them to the cops.

I was a fucking genius.

The months that passed after that day were fucking amazing. Even though Whitlock had them drugged up to their eyeballs the girls were still very responsive to my treatment and I found myself getting more and more fascinated with them. They way their bodies would squirm when a jolt of electricity would pass through them. The way they would cringe at the mere sight of a needle........

Of course Rachel was the most intriguing of the lot of them. She was the only one of those fucking bitches who really was a fruitcake, though in her case it was more of a strength than a weakness.

She would take one look around her when I took her down to the basement and know what it was that I would be doing to her. I could see it by the way her body tensed and her eyes went wide with horror as she looked from the table to me.

Her ability to predict what was coming also made her last longer than all of the others combined. The element of surprise and the suspense of not knowing what was going to happen or when it would happen to you made all the others snap before long and give up, taking the fun right out of the game.

Not Rachel.

She always knew what was coming for her and kept on fighting. She never spoke – the only noise she ever made were the agonized screams for help when she was in pain – but her eyes said it all.

Hatred. Loathing. Determination.

She was a fighter to the death and I inwardly admired her for it and, of course, for the amount of pain that tiny body could put up with. The nights I spend with her were always heaven and hell combined. Heaven because of the great insights her 'gift' gave me and her unheard of tolerance for pain, hell because whatever I did, she never broke. Half of the time she didn't even cringe after that first moment when she saw what I was going to do. That wasn't right. I needed her to break. I needed to reign over her as I had done with the others. Still...I had enjoyed every fucking minute of it. That was, until everything fucked up right in my face.

Of course Whitlock had to grow a conscience and decide that the wellbeing of his fucking guinea pigs was more important than science and reputation. He had made one mistake though.

One fucking big mistake.

Instead of going to the police and squealing his spineless fucking guts out he went to me for a nice little heart to heart.

Big Mistake.

He send me home that night, giving me the option to come clean on my own and forget a place like Lark Hill ever existed or come back and have my ass reported to the authorities. He acted like I was some kind of petulant little boy who needed a firm hand to get him on the right track again. Fucking wanker.

Of course I never went home. I waited in the woods outside until the lights went out for the night. All lights except for the one in the guinea pig room.

As soon as I established the coast to be clear I went in, flashing the night shift nurses a nice smile as I walked past the nurses station. They seemed to be completely in the dark about the stuff that happened to their precious little angels at night. Stupid fucking bitches.

I made sure to block all of the exits and put as much flammable stuff out there as I could find and use without attracting too much attention from the doogooder squad before disabling the fire alarm and sprinkler system and blowing the whole place to hell. Apart from three of the nurses who ran out pf the place like their fucking asses were on fire as soon as they smelled the faintest hint of smoke only one person made it out of their alive.

Rachel Lee.

I watched from the tree line as old man Whitlock carried her out of the burning building and lay her on the grass before sprinting back in. Only moments after he had disappeared into the smoke the whole building exploded, leaving only the tiny little creature spaced out on the grass behind.

I should have ended it there. I should have wrapped my hands around the skinny little neck of hers and choked the bitch to death.

I didn't.

I was too fascinated by the way she struggled against the crap the old man had pumped into her body. Too wrapped up in this little girl's struggle for survival.

She was so tenacious. Such a strong will in such a little body.

Before long the whole yard was filled with ambulances and firemen, carrying little Rachel off to safety.

I shuddered involuntary, remembering how my big plan had turned into a complete failure. For weeks I felt like a fucking screw up, hiding out in the woods and watching as forensics combed the ruins for evidence and human remains.

Then, about two weeks after the fire, I managed to get my hands on an old newspaper. Rachel's pretty little face was all over the front page, recounting the horrors she had endured at the hands of her doctor and his evil sidekick, both of whom perished in the fire.

I remember laughing so hard I almost fucking wet myself when I read about my own death.

As fucking if!

Then I saw what they wrote about me. How I was just the accessory instead of the instigator.

Fucking idiots! They knew nothing!

It didn't take long for me to develop a plan to show them just how alive, kicking and fucking evil this sidekick really was. I'd fucking show them the true meaning of pain and hopelessness.

I'd show them who the fucking master was.

"Are you coming?" Victoria chuckled, looking at me with arched eyebrows. "We have plan C to discuss."

"In a minute," I nodded. "I need to take care of some stuff at the lab."

"You're just scared the Denali bitch is going to be waiting for you in the living room with tea, cookies and a went cunt," Victoria taunted.

"And I know you'd be lying right beside her whinnying like a fucking broodmare," I spat back, running my hand up her legs to the crease in her jeans.

"Hurry," she moaned.

"Perfection takes time," I chuckled, getting out of the car and walking towards my lab.

Perfection took too much fucking time.

When I had set my cap at the angels I knew it wasn't going to be a fucking picnic in the park but I'd never thought those bitches were so fucking hard to kill.

My plan had been seemingly flawless and the execution on my part so perfect. I mean....the death of Tyler Crowley had been a fucking work of art and the police had never doubted the involvement of The Pack. Hell! Even the angels took the bait!

That night, when the brown haired girl had left with one of the gang members I was sure the first hurdle had been taken. Those bitches were good, but there was no way you could fool those dogs and just walk out of there.

Of course she had to pick the one fucking motherfucker out of that gang who wanted to get rid of the rest of those fucking losers. All three of those fucking whores had walked out of the club that night looking all fucking smug and happy and healthy.

Including little Rachel.

I had followed her all those years, not just because she was vital to all of my plans but also because she fascinated me. I had to admit that far away from the dark corridors of Lark Hill she looked like another person. Happy, bouncy, carefree. I wasn't fooled though. I knew that underneath she was still Rachel Lee, the only one who had resisted me. The one who got away.

I was going to change that.

Soon.

She would be in more pain than she had ever been in, thought this time it wouldn't just be physical.

Yes. I was going to hurt her and – eventually – kill her, but before I got to that I wanted to break that pretty little spirit of her. I wanted to see the sparks in those eyes go out as she subjected herself to me. Only then would I kill her.

Killing her friends would be the beginning. From what I had seen and from what Victoria had told me she thrived on her friendships. They were her main source of happiness. The fact that she had persevered in trying to see my Vicky in hospital even when I had told her a gazillion times that she wasn't up to entertaining taught me that.

I had been so fucking close to detection then. Thinking about the risks I had taken and how they had payed off still made me all fucking happy. Not only had I managed to outsmart Rachel, I had also landed myself the most loyal, fucking gorgeous woman in the world who was all too happy to hand me the keys to success and do all the dirty work for me.

Yes, killing her friends would break her and even if it didn't, killing her boss and that bitch who was protecting him certainly would. According to Victoria Alice and the bitch had bonded over time so that was bound to become interesting.

And then Carlisle....

How fucking awesome was that? The only time Rachel would ever see her great big savior would be when I slid his throat right in front of her. The thought alone got me hard as hell.

Now all we had to do was find him. We were close though, Victoria was sure that her attack on the office would lead her to him. It better be. I wouldn't be so forgiving is she fucked up again.

I didn't tolerate failure.

The lab felt oddly empty without the hugely annoying presence of Mike Newton. We had some fun with him though, even if he was a whiny little pussy and, after all, he proofed to be very useful to the plan.

Playing with Mike had been fun. It had been the ultimate test to see how far you could go before you killed someone, though in this case it hadn't been just for the hell of it. We had actually had some groundbreaking science to perform.

And a good thing we did.

It turned out the antidote wasn't enough to keep the virus away. Sure, as soon as we injected poor suffering Mikey with the stuff he started feeling better to the point where the virus seemed to have cleared out of his system, but the moment we exposed him to it again afterwards he became sick again.

No good.

We wanted to kill, but we also wanted to make a fucking killing and the good people of Washington weren't going to flock to Whitlock pharmaceuticals just to get a quick fix.

So I had send Maria back to the drawing board again to come up with a vaccine, something to counteract the virus permanently.

Not that it would do the good people of Forks any good. They would all be dead before the antidote became available.

It had taken me the best part of these last ten years to come up with a virus strong enough to cause total fucking bedlam and find the medicine to counteract it. I had always been drawn to virusses and their amazing ability to cause widespread hysteria to break out at the mere mention of them.

Fear.

Pain.

The two things that got me going.

Watching this particular virus wreak havoc in the human body had been better than anything I had ever seen in my life. The thought of what it was going to do now that it was out in the open made me down right fucking giddy.

I had no fucking doubt in my mind that the moment people were going to see the effects of the disease they would launch into a fucking panic that would make the lynch mobs during the Black Death pandemic look like the fucking hippies at Woodstock.

All because of me. The fucking sidekick.

Though I had to admit Maria did her part as well.

Maria was brilliant. She was the top of her class at Harvard Med and offered positions all over the globe yet she chose the small meaningless little doogooder company led by young man Whitlock. Talk about fucking coincidences!

She seemed like the hardest fucking target I had came across yet, making me hard at the mere thought of breaking her, seeing that proud little Mexican wander over to the dark side.

So I was what I did best: cause pain.

Over the years I had learned that sometimes psychological pain was far more effective than the physical variety. For instance, if I would have tortured Maria into submission the only thing I would have gotten out of it was a small prison cell and a destroyed asshole. I may have gotten the temporary gratification of thinking I was going to succeed but as soon as I had turned away Maria would have reported my sorry ass to the police.

My way, however, had made me end up with a very valuable asset, one that not only developed the vaccine and the antidote to my virus but would also deliver the perfect cover.

It had all been disappointingly easy in the end. The moment I found out that underneath all that fucking 'I want to save the toddlers of this world from having runny noses' crap lay a very ambitious little bitch just waiting to be brought to life the deal was done. Just a few carefully nurtured seeds of doubt and the the realization that she was never going to be number one in the company and I had her begging for me to help her get revenge.

Not that she knew of my plans to wipe out the people of Forks. Hell, little miss goody two shoes would never have signed off on that. As far as she was concerned we were going to put the antidote out there as soon as the first victims started coughing.

Foolish little bitch! Like that was going to make us fucking famous. Screw standing on the shoulders of giants! If you really wanted to make the history books you had to go stand on a pile of dead bodies as high as the fucking Empire State Building.

Forks would do. Just about.

The only thing we needed to do now was get rid of Whitlock junior before he started to ask too many fucking questions and get the virus into the open.

I quickly checked on the cultures I had stewing in the lab, shooting a fleeting glance over at the now empty quarantine cell at the back. If all went according to plan Mike Newton would be dead by now. The thought of not being able to see him breathe his last breath made me feel a little pang of sadness. It was like I had walked out of the show before the Grand Finale.

Well....it couldn't be helped.

I locked the door behind me before walking back to the main house. My Victoria would distract me. Maybe she'd even let me tie her up and spank her. Pleasure and pain combined........Heaven. Pure heaven.

I saw the look on her face the minute I walked into the kitchen. No quick fuck against the counter for me tonight, just another shitload of trouble by the look of it.

"What is it?" I asked.

She held up her finger, as her other hand pressed her phone to her ear. "It's Maria," she finally explained. "There's a situation in Seattle."

"What is it?" I demanded, holding out my hand for the phone.

"It's the Brandon bitch," Victoria growled. "She's getting closer. Maria is starting to get twitchy."

A string of Spanish profanities drifted through the air as Maria caught on to what we were saying.

"Give me the damn phone," I barked, snatching the thing out of Victoria's hands. "Maria?"

"_I caught the Brandon girl snooping around Jasper's house and took her out," _Maria shrieked. The woman may have a brilliant mind and a body that screamed 'do me', if there was one thing she didn't have it was cast-iron nerves.

"Did you kill her?" I asked.

"_I don't think so,"_ she panted. _"I didn't check." _

"You'd better not," I snarled. Killing Rachel would be unforgivable.

I was answered by a string of profanities, none of which I was able to understand. Fucking Mexican bitch and her temper. Like I had the fucking time to calm her down right now.

"Calm down," I growled, trying to make sense of the stuff she was yelling at me. "So the Brandon girl is in Seattle?"

"_She flew in with Jasper today," _Maria rattled._ "He had a meeting in town today and he took her with him. When I saw him leave for the meeting just now she wasn't with him so I went in and caught her snooping around his office. I hit her on the head with a candlestick and got the hell out of there." _

"I said calm down!" I barked. Jumpy fucking bitch. Judging from what she had told me about Whitlock's apartment the place was guarded by a doorman and if the guy had seen maria running out of there like her fucking ass was on fire he'd be sure to remember it. "Do we know if there's anything over at his place that can trace back to us?"

"_I don't think so,"_ Maria said hesitantly. _"But I thought I heard Croft say something about dropping off some status reports at his house a couple of days ago." _

"Who the fuck is Croft and what is in those fucking reports?"

"_He keeps the records of everything that goes on in the labs and the stuff that gets used," s_he explained._ "That's also what will be in the reports." _

"Did she read them?"

"_I don't know,"_ Maria whined.

"What the fuck do you mean?" I growled. "Did you check?"

"_I ran away as soon as I saw the bitch go down,"_ Maria stammered.

"Will they be able to find out what you're doing over there?" I demanded.

"_If they read all the way through....yes,"_ Maria sighed. "_So far Jasper hasn't done more than pass a fleeting glance over those reports but I don't know what the Brandon girl is going to do."_

"Alright," I sighed, running my hand through my hair. All fucking wrong. "You're going to have to go in and fix this."

"_Fix this?"_

"You're the one who got Whitlock all suspicious," I growled. "So yes....you fix this."

"_What do I do?_"

"Make sure the reports disappear for now," I started. "And be sure to keep an eye on Whitlock and the Brandon girl."

"_What about tomorrow," _Maria yelled. _"They are sure to find out!" _

"Do what you have to without killing them," I ordered. "You can kill Whitlock if you want to but remember"the Brandon girl is mine. Harm her and you'll be sorry. Very sorry."

"_What the fuck am I supposed to do James?"_ she growled. _"Spit her in the face and hope she'll go away?" _

"No," I said, rolling my eyes at her stupidity. "Grab everything we need and get out undetected."

"_Where to?"_

"Come to the house," I said. "There's nothing that can trace them back here."

"_What if something goes wrong?"_ she whined.

"Just fucking do it okay?" I snarled, breaking the connection. Why oh why did I always end up with complete fucking morons on my team?

"You okay baby?" Victoria asked hesitantly.

"Do I fucking look okay?" I growled.

"Hey," she spat back. "I didn't fuck up the plans so don't go bitching at me!"

"Shut the fuck up and let me think," I huffed, leaning against the kitchen island. I knew better than to mess with my baby when she was gearing up to be all defensive. I wouldn't be the first one to get emasculated by her terrifyingly capable hands.

"What happened," she persisted.

"Didn't I tell you to shut the fuck up?"

"And didn't I tell you to quit whining like a little girl?"

"Whitlock took Alice to Seattle, Maria found her and took her down with a candlestick or something. Maria thinks she'll find out what we're up to but since the bitch ran out of there before she even checked to see what Brandon was looking at we still don't know shit......"

"She'll have to kill them then," Victoria shrugged.

"No," I hissed. "Alice is mine."

"At all cost?"

"She is the prize you fucking bimbo!" I spat back.

I felt the sting before my mind registered she had slapped me.

"Bitch!" I yelled. "What the fuck did you do that for?"

"No one calls me a fucking bimbo," she warned, her long fingernails dangerously close to my eyes. "And what the fuck do you mean by she's the prize?"

"I want her to break before I kill her. I need her to break," I muttered. "She has to know what I'm capable of......"

"So all of this is just because you want to play with the damn girl?" Victoria chuckled. "What the hell did she do to you?"

Always with the questions! Victoria had been dying to find out for years what had me so fascinated with the angels. I knew she had made up her own story – and that it probably came fucking close to the truth – but I hadn't told her of my fucking failure. I would take that shit to the grave with me.

"That's none of your fucking business!" I spat. "You just get back to killing Carlisle and leave the girls to me."

"Like you have a plan," she snorted depreciatively.

"I do actually," I snickered as I watched my new scenario unfold in front of my minds eye.

This one was good.

So fucking good.

"Get the Denali bitch on the phone," I ordered. "We need her."

I had to admit my new plan was risky, even by my standards. I didn't usually let my girls play such a great part in my plans, I was all about control and all. But hey, desperate fucking times.....And well, if I was able to pull this shit off I would be the fucking king.

Let's just hope the girls wouldn't fuck up again. A lot was riding on them now.

--

An hour or so later we were all assembled around the dining room table, me munching on the cannelloni Victoria had prepared while both my girls looked at me like I'd gone completely mad.

"So," I smiled smugly as I swallowed my last bite. "You want to know about my plan?"

"Get on with it James," Victoria huffed, rolling her eyes. "You know you're no fucking good at suspense."

"How far are you with your plans for Carlisle?" I asked.

"Good to go," she shrugged. "All we have to do is get the angels out of there. Why? Are we still going ahead as planned?"

"Yes," I nodded before turning to the other side of the table. "So Tanya....do you still want to have a go at Masen's new girl?"

* * *

_**This explains why Bella's such a danger magnet in this story. James has set his cap at her and he won't back down until she's dead. It's all part of his plan. I think Bella's uncanny ability to survive his schemes only edges him on since it makes him feel inadequate and we've all seen what that makes him do.....**_

_**Next chapter we get back to Alice and Jasper. What will Maria do now she fears detection? Will they make it to the lab before Maria gets rid of all the evidence?**_


	25. Stuck in the middle with you

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

* * *

**Stuck in the middle with you.**

_**(Alice Brandon)**_

"Alice?" The voice sounded like it was miles away but even in spite of the distance and the incessant pounding of my head the feelings behind the voice were crystal clear. Shock. Anguish.

"Alice? Please talk to me," the voice kept talking to me. "What happened?"

Then it all hit me. I had been attacked. I was snooping around in Jasper's office and I had been attacked.

"Get the hell away from me!" I yelled, bolting upright and putting some distance between me and the voice.

Bad idea.

The pounding in my head – which had been an annoying background sensation before – increased tenfold to the extend where it seemed like someone was hitting me on the head with a jackhammer.

Owch.

"Alice?" Jaspers face looked as pained as his voice had sounded as he looked at me from across the room. "Please sit down. Let me call you a doctor." He moved towards the desk. Too damn close to me.

"Stay back!" I ordered, wondering where my purse and my pepper spray had gone.

"Who did this to you?"

"Like you don't know," I said, rubbing my temples while keeping a close eye on him. "Business meeting my ass!"

"You think I did this?" he yelled exasperated, running a hand through his hair. "I didn't! Honestly!" He looked at me as if I had just told him he needed to have his balls lobbed up to stay alive. "I would never do anything to hurt you! You have to believe me."

"Don't come any closer," I barked, still trying to relieve my pain.

"Do you want me to get you some Tylenol?" he asked, "or a doctor? I really think you should sit down for a while and let me call you a doctor."

I tried to think things over, though that wasn't easy when your head feel like a herd or flock or whatever the fuck you call a gang of rhino's has just trampled all over it. It didn't make sense for Jasper to hit me over the head and then just let me lie here. If it were him who hit me I would have ended up in the lake by now. But still......

"What happened?" I asked, scrutinizing his face for any hints of dishonesty.

"The driver left a message on my cell phone when you didn't answer the door so I got over here to try and find out what was going on as soon as I was able to get away. I found you here, lying on the floor. You kind of know the rest....."

"I don't believe you," I snarled, almost unable to hear my own voice over the throbbing in my head. "Stay back."

"Please," he pleaded, pulling his phone out of his pocket. "I'll call my accountants to testify to my being at the bank all afternoon. Hell! I'll even make them pull out the surveillance tapes of the building if that makes you believe me." He looked so lost and sad that – even though I really didn't want to – I was starting to believe him.

"If you didn't do it then who did?" I countered. "The attack happened minutes after you left and I didn't even hear anyone come in....."

"I'm not the only one who has a key to this apartment Alice," he sighed. "Maria has one as well....."

"Maria?"

"I gave one to her when we were still together," he said. "She never returned it and – since we were still working together – I never pressed her for it. I'm sorry. I should have remembered......"

I believed him, even if the part of my head that wasn't pounding was screaming at me not to. I had to admit the part had some pretty good arguments though. Jasper could easily blame Maria – someone who wasn't actually here to defend herself – for this. Who knew if she even had a key to begin with? I hadn't seen or heard anything before I had been hit on the head so as far as I was concerned the person who did it could be Jasper or Maria or even Bozo the freakin' Clown.

"I believe you," I nodded, only realizing after the words had left my mouth that I had actually said them out loud.

I watched as Jasper let out a huge sigh of relief, his eyes going from anguished to concerned and still guarded. "Will you let me help you then?"

"I'm fine," I said, trying to convince him.

"I can see you're in pain Alice," he replied. "Do you need a doctor?"

Did I need a doctor?

I cautiously moved my hand over the back of my head, cringing when the tips of my fingers brushed over the part where whatever my attacker had used to attack me with had made contact with my skin. My head hurt and my skin was starting to swell but apart from that I was okay.

"No," I said. "Just some aspirin if you have it."

"I own a pharmaceutical company," he snorted. "I think I can manage some aspirin."

"Can you bring them to the guest bedroom?" I asked, looking around to see if I could find something that could tell me what time it was. "I think I want to lie down for a bit."

I might not be in need of medical assistance but I did feel a little unsteady on the feet. I didn't know how long I could keep my body upright at this moment and collapsing in front of Whitlock junior wasn't an option.

"Sure," he replied. "I'll also see if I can find something more comfortable for you to wear."

"Thanks," I said, slowly starting to make my way out of the office and over to the bedroom.

Before I was willing to rest my painful head I made sure to lock and bolt the door and push the heavy wooden dresser in front of it just to be on the safe side. Only then did I strip out of my clothes and into the t-shirt jasper had loaned me before dragging my body over to the elaborate canopy bed.

I was out like a light before five minutes had passed.

--

"Alice?" I was roused the next morning by a soft knock on the door and the sound of his voice. "Are you awake?"

"I am now," I groaned, rubbing my hand over the impressive lump that had formed on the back of my head.

"I'm sorry," Jasper said. "Can you open the door please? I'd like to ascertain for myself that you are alright."

"Give me a minute," I said, sliding out of bed and quickly checking my appearance in the mirror before pushing the dresser back to its place and unlocking the door.

He wasn't wearing a suit today, I figured he probably didn't need to wear a suit if he was just going to be at the office today. He still looked nice though, in his black slacks and blue Oxford shirt that had almost the same color as his eyes. I had to admit it. The guy could dress

"Did you barricade yourself in there?" he grinned.

"Better to be safe than sorry," I shrugged, eying the bag.

"I'm sorry," he said, a little sad. "I called the police as soon as you were asleep but of course Maria was nowhere to be found. They kept an eye of the apartment and the company though. How is your head today?"

"Not so bad," I shrugged. "Nothing a shower and some Tylenol can't fix."

"I'm happy to hear that," he smiled.

"We need to get over to the lab to see what's going on there," I said, wishing I had grown my hair so that I could hide my blush behind it. Treacherous body. Why did it have to start being all shy and feminine right now? It wasn't like Whitlock was the first guy who had showed me some kindness! "I was looking over one of those reports you mentioned before she attacked me and I think there's more going on there than we know...."

Then I'd better give you some space to get dressed and get breakfast ready," he smiled, stepping back into the hallway. "Meet me in the living room when you're ready."

"Thanks!" I yelled over the sound of the shower heating up.

It was a good thing Maria didn't attack me with anything sharp last night because I don;t think Jasper's employee's would have appreciated me turning up at their workspace looking like I'd just butchered something. Showing up in a day old outfit was bad enough already but hey, beggars can't be choosers.

--

"I hope you like strawberries," he said, pointing towards the small plate holding a dainty looking tower of puff pastry, strawberries and cream.

"They will do," I joked, gathering my first fork filled with the delicious looking food. "Did you make this yourself?"

"God no," he chuckled. "I would burn water if you give me the chance." He looked dead serious when he spoke. "No...Jessica brought them with her when she dropped off your clothes. I realized when I woke up this morning that I didn't actually have any food in the house so I ordered in."

"It's delicious," I said, savoring another bite.

"There's coffee and OJ as well if you want some. Oh and by the way....your phone has been ringing nonstop," he said causally, his face hiding behind a newspaper as he ate his breakfast.

"Crap!" I gasped. I should have called in to let them know I was safe – well, sort of – ages ago. "Where is my bag?"

"Over by the couch,"he said. "Emmett called me when you couldn't be reached so they know what's going on. I think he still wants you to call him though."

"I'll be back in a minute," I said, walking back to the guest bedroom.

"Bosley?" I said as the phone was picked up on the second ring. "I'm so sorry for not calling in before but....."

"_It's okay Al,"_ Bosley chuckled at my hyperactive apologies. _"You were in no state to answer the phone – I know – but I kind of need to brief you on some stuff that happened over here." _

"What sort of stuff?" I asked, anxiety creeping up on me.

"_Nothing really,"_ he soothed. "_Just Bella going off on one of her wild goose chases. Everything is alright now." _

"What happened Bosley?" I insisted.

"_As I said....nothing much,"_ he went on, his voice way too strained for me to believe him. Either Rose was under his desk sucking the life out of him or he was lying through his teeth. _"Bella kind of went after the Volturi on her own and Edward had to get the SWAT team to get her out in one piece but as I said....everything is okay." _

"SHE DID WHAT?" I yelled, not believing my ears,

"_Yeah...well....I think you heard me the first time._"

"Is she with you right now?" I growled. "Because if she is I have a thing or two to say to her."

"_Edward's kind of holding her hostage right now,"_ Emmett chuckled _"He went all possessive on her ass as soon as she was safe. Practically dragged her out of the building by her hair."_ Great. Bella does the stupidest thing a breathing organism on this planet has ever done as she gets rewarded with hot monkey sex with a hot guy while I do my job and get hit on the head? Not fair! _"We're expecting her here in about half an hour though,"_ Emmett went on. "_I think Rosie is already sharpening the knives." _

"She'd better be," I growled. "Are you going to fire her?"

"_I don't know,"_ Emmett replied, his voice uncharacteristically serious. _"If it were up to me I would fire her pretty little ass faster than a speeding bullet but Carlisle wants to hear what she has to say for herself first." _

"He's not going to fire her is he?" I asked, my hopes getting the better of me. Even if Bella did a stupid thing and deserved to be yelled at, slapped in the face and put in the corner with donkey's ears on her head and a big sign saying 'stupid' attached to her chest, she was still my girl and a damn good angel and we couldn't afford to loose her right now.

"_I don't know pixie," _Emmett said. _"I think everything is riding on her answers today." _

"Emmett?"

"_Yes pixie?" _

"Slap her for me will you?"

"_I will do my best,"_ he chuckled. _"Anything else you want me to pass along?" _

"Just that's she's an idiot and that I expect a full blow by blow on her night of sweet lovin' the moment I get back."

"_You and Jasper have fun sweetheart,_" he replied and I could almost see his mischievous smirk in front of me.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"_What? I was just urging you to make the most of your day!" _

"Yeah right!" I snorted. "Bye Emmett."

"_By pixie,"_ he laughed. _"Give 'em hell." _

"Will do,"I said absentmindedly, my mind still running a mile a minute over the things that had happened in Forks in my absence.

How could Bella have been so stupid? Something must have happened to set her off. Emmett had said as much himself. I was guessing they had used her family against her again, knowing that this was her weak spot.

Bella was easily angered and tended to react rashly. If James – because there was no doubt in my mind James was behind this – had guessed as much then she would be a very easy target for him. It would also explain the insane number of near death experiences Bella had had these last couple of days.

If only James took a break from trying to kill my best friend for as long as I was away....

"Is everything okay?" I jumped a little as I heard Jasper's voice behind me. "Sorry," he added. "I didn't mean to startle you."

"It's okay," I said, laughing at my own behavior. "And things back there are okay too – well....sort off. Long story."

"Are you ready to leave?" he asked, "The car is waiting downstairs."

"I'm ready," I said, dropping my phone back into my bag. "So do you have a chauffeured car waiting around for you all the time or is this just something you're doing to impress me?"

"A bit of both," he laughed, offering me his hand. "I only use the towncar service for business meetings and stuff. Most of the time I just drive into work on my bike but seeing as my bike is still at the office and it's kind of hard maneuvering through morning rush hour traffic with a passenger on your back I thought this might be the better option."

"Plus helmet hair does not a happy Alice make," I added as we stepped into the elevator.

"And I didn't even thought about that!" he chuckled.

The drive passed – for the most part – in comfortable silence. Every now and then Jasper would point out a noteworthy building or speak to someone on the phone but for the rest we were both happy to remain still.

"Your company isn't located in the city center?" I asked as we were slowly making our way outside the city.

"Nope," he responded, typing some message on his PDA. "It sits on the outskirts, in the middle of the fields."

"Isn't it inconvenient to have your company that far away from the city center?" I asked.

"Perhaps," he nodded, his eyes focused on his Blackberry. "But I find this green atmosphere relaxing and being so far away from junkies and other scum trying to break into your lab to get high has its advantages as well."

When we pulled up in front of the huge gated compound, holding a few industrial looking buildings as well a a large block of offices, I couldn't help but agree with him. It looked so tranquil for an industrial site. I could imagine it had a positive effect on the atmosphere in the building.

"Let's go inside," he said. "I can tell you more about the work we do, but I think it's best if I show you."

He guided me towards the largest of the buildings on the site where we were greeted by a nice lady working the front desk.

Lauren Mallory eat your heart out.

"This is our research lab," he stated, as we walked by a large window overlooking a large laboratory where a couple of people were working. "If you want to go in there with me you'll have to wear some special clothing though. We don't want the samples to get contaminated."

"Okay," I said. The prospect of having to wear some smelly lab coat and one of those monstrous scrub caps was a bit daunting but I guessed that if I wanted to understand anything about this case I would just have to suck it up and take one for the team.

"What is this?" Jasper asked the lab technician as he peeked into his microscope. "It's not an ordinary flu virus."

"Doctor Delgado brought it over a couple of days ago," the technician explained, a little nervously. "She said it was some very aggressive mutation WHO-virologists had discovered somewhere in Southeast Asia. She called it Chimera."

"Chimera?" I asked. I had heard that name before.

"Chimera is a mythological monster," lab guy explained, still looking at the magnified contents of the petri dish. "It is made up of the parts of multiple other animals." Yes. I had seen pictures of an ugly Humpty Dumpty kind of monster. It had to have been Chimera. "In virology the name chimera refers to a new hybrid microorganism created by joining nucleic acid fragments from two or more different microorganisms in which each of at least two of the fragments contain essential genes necessary for replication."

Right. Now in English please.

Jasper must have noticed my look because he struggled to hold back his chuckled before he explained. "It's a virus made up of parts of at least two different viruses."

Why didn't they say that before? It wasn't as if I spoke lab or anything. No need to make me feel like a complete ass.

"She brought it in days ago?" Jasper asked, finally disentangling himself from the microscope.

"Yes, sir," lab guy replied, "but the strange thing is......" He hesitated, almost as if he was afraid we were going to get mad at him for speaking the truth.

"What is it man," Jasper insisted. "Speak up. You have nothing to fear from us."

"It wasn't the first virus like this one she had brought in," lab guy explained quickly. "This is the strongest and most aggressive version we have seen to date but she has brought in viruses like it before, all of them just mutations of H5N1 though."

"Avian flu?" I asked.

"Yes," lab guy nodded. "It was strange.....almost as if she was searching for a virus that Bellerophon could cure."

"Bellerophon?" Jasper and I both asked.

"Yes," the poor guy looked at Jasper as if he was wondering which of the two of them had gone mental. "It's the new influenza antidote Whitlock Pharmaceuticals is working on."

"What?" Jasper barked, running his hand though his hair.

"Y-you didn't....know?" the guy stammered.

"Fucking bitch," I heard Jasper curse next to me, sending the poor lab technician into a full blown anxiety attack. "That's why she wanted to run the labs. She was trying her hardest to keep this from me."

"What is Bellerophon?" I asked lab guy, wanting the know what the hell he was talking about and wanting to distract him from his fuming boss.

"It's an antidote ," the still shaky guy explained. "It's meant to cure some new mutant form of the flu."

"Chimera," I nodded.

"Yes," he said, his head shaking up and down so fast I was afraid it was going to fall off his neck. "But we didn't know that until a few days ago when doctor Delgado brought a sample of it in for testing. She wanted us to start working on a vaccine now that work on the antidote has been completed."

"Then how did you develop it?" Jasper interrupted.

"We just did exactly as we were told," the guy replied quickly. "She said it was just something she wanted to try. I mean.....we had our doubts about the whole thing but...well....she's doctor Delgado."

"I don't blame you," Jasper shrugged. "Is there anything else you can tell us Peter?"

"Not that much," the guy – Peter – muttered looking at us with an apologetic expression on his face. "I thought I heard something about Bellerophon going into mass production a few days back but....I didn't know. It seems ridiculous to start producing large amounts of a vaccine for a virus that no one even knows about."

Not that ridiculous, when the original virus was probably in the hands of an evil madman.

"Thanks Peter," Jasper spoke, grabbing my hand to pull me after him as he started to walk to the door. "And don't worry. I won't let anything bad happen to you. You were only doing your job."

"Where are we going?" I panted, struggling to keep up with him. Between Jaspers long legs and my own tiny ones I had to fasten my pace to a jog in order to not fall behind.

"Maria's office," he barked, before tuning around to face me as we waited in front of the elevators. "I'm sorry for dragging you after me like that. I hope I didn't hurt you?" He took my wrist in his hands, his long slender fingers rubbing my sensitive skin to assess the damage for themselves.

"No," I admitted, "but I would like a warning next time."

"Next time...." he mused, grinning mischievously.

"Is that something they can do?" I panted, quickly changing the subject.

"What?" he asked, looking at me.

"Create the antidote before the virus?"

"Not usually," he said. "They don't call it an antidote for nothing. It is something that counteracts something else."

"Then how did she do it?"

"Maria knows her viruses," he sighed. "She's the most brilliant virologist I've ever met. I was just a lucky son of a bitch who managed to come up with something decent on his first try, concocting a new and good influenza vaccine that could be manufactured relatively cheap. She is the real talent in this company. It's like she can think like a virus and counteract it before it strikes. She still would have needed samples of both H1N1 and H5N1 though."

"And those are hard to come by?" I asked as we exited the elevator.

"They don't let just anyone play around with H1N1," he explained, guiding me into a long corridor. "Given it's destructive nature and still very present threat to public health they only allow specialized government facilities to research the virus."

"Like Forks General Hospital?" I snorted.

"Yes," he chuckled. "Forks may seem like an insignificant town to you but thanks to its chief of staff the hospital has one of the best research facilities in the country."

"So how did she get her hands on it?" I asked. "Assuming they didn't start developing both the virus and the cure last week when the vials were stolen from FGH."

"I don't know," he mused. "God knows how long Maria may have been involved with James. They might have stolen a small sample from any hospital or university for their research....."

"Right," I mused, storing another piece of information away for further investigation. "So what are we hoping to find in Maria's office?"

"A project like the one she has been running around my back requires paperwork. Lots of it."

"And you hope to find it in here?" I wondered out loud. It would seem like such a stupid thing to do. The office was the first place people would be looking if they found out about her secret scheme.

"Knowing Maria she'd want her documentation close by, in a place she knows others can't get to," he explained, opening the door to the office with his key card.

Maria's office was beautiful. A large open space with huge windows making up one of the walls. The place was decorated in a classic style with lots of dark wood, white walls and a painting I suspected to be a real Frida Kahlo hanging opposite her desk.

She may have been a rat, but she sure as hell knew about pretty things.

"This is where she keeps her secrets," Jasper chuckled, waving his hand at a huge iron door in one of the walls.

That was as big a motherfucker of a safe as I had ever seen in my life.

And that was saying something.

"I have one just like it," he continued, "we have lots of documents – trade secrets and information that could threaten public health – that we need to keep from the wrong eyes so we had these installed."

"I don't know a lot about safes......." I muttered, hating having to admit defeat even before I started the fight. "Rose usually does that sort of stuff."

"Then it's a good thing I know the combination right?" Jasper grinned, tapping his fingers over the keyboard.

Damn sexy son of a bitch.

I was so going to need a good healthy therapy session – maybe even more than one – after this case had been resolved. Having to face and hug every single ghost of my past was one thing but developing feelings for the guy who was supposed to be one step away from your worst enemy was quite another.

"Got it," he stated triumphantly as he opened the huge heavy door.

"What? Do you want a pat on the back and a cookie now?" I growled, eying the dark little chamber behind the door.

Not good.

I had feeling about the little room, like being in there wasn't going to work out right for me.

"Are you okay looking through that stuff on your own?" I asked as he dove into the vault with an enthusiasm that rivaled a child's on Christmas morning.

"Yeah, yeah," he muttered distractedly.

I spend some time looking at the bright colored painting on the wall while rifling though Maria's personal belongings, not that it taught me anything other than the fact that the girl had an appointment to get waxed tomorrow. I guess even evil bitches needed to take care of excess hair.

"Motherfucker!" I heard Jasper mutter from the vault.

"What is it?" I asked. I couldn't remember having heard him cuss before.

"She's been using the company as a cover up for her own messed up little scheme all along," he growled. "She's definitely working with James.....she used the company accounts to pay for all of this.....Fuck."

Curiosity won out on common sense at that point and I wandered into the vault to see what the Whitlock boy had unearthed.

He was leaning against the back wall, files scattered everywhere, holding a bunch of half crumbled papers in his hands as he muttered all kinds of profanities.

"Is there anything in there we could use to get the bitch behind bars?" I asked.

"Plenty," he growled.

"But the thing is...." a voice sounded from behind me, "by the time you get out of here, the bitch will be long gone."

I knew I never should have gotten into this little room, it was a failtrain waiting to leave the station. Even if I had...I should never have wandered so far into the vault that I couldn't prevent the door from closing on my sorry little ass.

Even more indications that my brain wasn't working properly at the moment.

"Have fun in here," I could hear Maria laugh as she slammed the door shut. "I would say make yourself comfortable....but I know there is precious little room for that in there!"

Shit.

This couldn't be happening.

"We have to get out of here!" Jasper growled, voicing both our thoughts as he pushed his weight against the door.

Like that would do us any good. These doors were made of solid steel. One lanky southern guy wasn't going to break though that.

"You'd better focus your attention on finding something to open those doors with," I stated, rolling my eyes as I rifled through the filing cabinets.

Great.

Paperwork.

Some brainiac may have once said that the pen was mightier than the sword, but right now I would really prefer a sword over thousands of pages worth of scribblings.

"I found a hammer and some wire," he stated triumphantly after he had been rummaging through some boxes.

Great.

A hammer.

"Who the hell do you think I am Jasper? BA fucking Baracus?" I spat. "It's not like I can build a damn tank using a vacuum cleaner and a broomstick!"

At least if all else failed I could bash his skull in using the hammer.

"I don't know," he shrugged, clearly intimidated by my behavior. "I'm only making a suggestion."

"Try something better."

"As if you are brimming with bright ideas!"

"If you would just keep your mouth shut for five seconds I might!" I yelled back. The guy was really starting to get on my nerves. I could see this getting really ugly if someone wouldn't come to our aid very soon.

"I'm sorry if my behavior isn't fit in occasions such as this," he mocked, taking deep breaths to calm himself down. "But what the hell am I supposed to do? Right now my business partner is running rampage with a virus my company may have created!"

"Throwing temper tantrums isn't going to get us out of here, that's for sure," I sighed.

"It just kills me to know that once again the name of Whitlock will become a byword for terrible agony," he spoke softly.

"Is that all you care about?" I sneered. I couldn't believe it. After everything he had said and done yesterday I had come to think that maybe he wasn't such a terrible bastard after all. I guess I was mistaken. "People are going to die Jasper! Are your name and the reputation of your company really that important?"

"That's not what I meant!" he yelled back.

"Sure sounds like it," I spat back.

He jumped to his feet, rubbing his hands over his face while mumbling something incoherent. "Ever since I found out what my father did to all of those poor girls at Lark Hill.........." he turned to me, an expression of complete agony on his face. "I've been toiling for most of my adult life to make up for what the bastard did, only to find out that all my efforts have been in vain."

"Oh," I didn't know what to say to that.

"When the cops investigating the fire that killed my dad explained to us what had been going on under our very noses....what kind of a miserable creature my father had been....." he sighed, sinking back on his knees again. "I've been haunted by all sorts of scenarios of what really went on behind those iron gates ever since. It must have been such a nightmare for those girls....."

"It was," I said, the images of those terrible years playing in front of my minds eye again. "The only thing you could do to escape the horror was to retreat into yourself and hope it would soon be over." The words were out before I knew it. There was no stopping them.

Jasper looked at me, his face turning ashen as my words slowly sank in. "You were one of those girls...." he whispered.

"Yes."

"You were one of his victims."

"Yes," I repeated, unable to say anything else. I had wanted to keep this from him. I had a hard enough time not thinking about my past as it was.

"You were tortured by my dad and still you want to protect me?" he ran his hand through his hair, looking at me like I had just grown a third boob or something.

"It's my job," I shrugged. "And it's not like I volunteered for this assignment or anything."

"You're a saint," he whispered.

"Not exactly," I chuckled. "I'm an angel." I was probably sounding like a hyena at the moment but I figured I might as well take a leaf out of Bosley's book. After all.....there was no way to relieve tension than with some good old fashioned humor.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"It's not exactly something you want to go shout off the rooftops," I shrugged. "And...well.....you weren't so bad once I got to know you. I didn't want to remind you of the stuff your dad did."

"I'm so sorry," he said, scooting over to where I was sitting and placing his hand on top of mine.

"Don't be," I said, looking into his sad eyes. "You weren't there when he did it. You never knew."

"How can you be so calm when you talk about it?" he asked.

"It's in the past," I shrugged. "I try not to dwell on the bad things that happened to me." It was true. It had been my way of coping with it. Not exactly ignoring it, but trying to focus on the future. I owed it to my friends who had died in the fire at Lark Hill to make something of my life and not to cry over that what could not be changed.

"You're an amazing woman Alice," he said, weaving my fingers through mine. "I know you probably hate me and my family....but I would like to get to know you better."

"I don't hate you," I whispered, wondering why I let him get so close to me. Hell....wondering why I didn't hate the guy when I had promised myself I would hate him.

Why didn't I?

I should hate him.

No.

I had to hate him, even if it was just to protect my own sanity.

But I couldn't.

Not anymore.

Before I could react his hand came up to cup my cheek, cradling it gently in his palm.

"You don't hate me?" he asked incredulously, his face moving closer to mine.

"I don't," I whispered, knowing I should stop him before this got out of hand but not being able to find the strength of mind to do so.

The flesh was weak and it wanted to be kissed. To be loved.

The moment his soft lips made contact with mine the images started playing in my head. Images of what out future would be.

And it was brilliant.

The kiss was short gently and sweet - everything a good first kiss should be – but it left me even more confused than I already was. It was like a fire was raging in my body, warming me from the inside. I had to stop it before it would start to consume me.

What?

Wait a minute.

Fire.

"Jasper," I panted. "Do you have a lighter?"

He must have thought I had gone mad. It was not everyday you kissed a girl and instead of having her thank you or slap you in the face she asked you for a lighter.

"I figured out a way to get us out of this place," I explained. "But it all depends on if we can get the fire extinguishers to work."

I was a little annoyed with myself for not having thought of this before. I mean, the trick with the fire extinguishers was about as old as they got.

Jasper started searching his pockets, never taking his eyes of me as he went through them. "Here," he said, handing me a silver zippo. "Do you think it will work?"

"No doubt about it," I chuckled, eying the ceiling for sprinklers. "Now can you give me a boost? I don't think I'm quite tall enough to reach for the sprinklers."

"Ya think?" he laughed, lifting me in the air as if I weighed no more than a feather. The fact that he seemed to be enjoying the fact that his hands were holding my ass wasn't lost on me as I lit up one of the papers and held the smoking object close to the sprinkler.

I guess the pen was mightier than the sword after all.

By the time the firefighters came to investigate the source of the fire alarm we were completely soaked but happy to be freed.

"Miss Brandon?" a woman asked. "I have a mr. McCarty on hold for you. You can take the call over at the reception. It sounded urgent."

"Emmett," I growled, answering the call. I was still pissed off at having been outsmarted by Maria yet again.

"_Alice! Where are you?"_ Emmett almost yelled through the phone._ "Bella is sick. They think it's the virus." _

"WHAT?" I yelled. There was no way the bitch could have made it out to Forks so fast. This must have been James' doing. "When did all this happen?"

"_This morning,"_ Emmett explained. _"Edward found her on the floor of the apartment......she looked like she was minutes away from dying." _

"How is she doing?" I whispered.

"_Not good,"_ Emmett said in a small voice. _"She's in hospital, they won't let anyone near her except for Edward – though I don't think they could have kept him away even if they tried. They are both in isolation." _

"Did they say anything about the progression of the virus?' I asked, remembering what Jasper had told me yesterday.

"_They seem to be thinking the virus is slowing down. Thats good.....right?" _

"I don't know," I said, tears streaming down my face as I thought about my best friend curled up in agony in a hospital bed. "It may give us time to get the antidote to her on time though."

"_What antidote?"_ Emmett asked.

"Don't ask," I sighed. "Jasper will fly back to Forks with it as soon as he can," I said, looking at Jasper for confirmation. "I have to take care of Maria first."

If that bitch had something to do with the virus she would be wishing she had never been born after I was done with her. Carlisle's angels never killed their target but I couldn't remember there being any rules about torture and mutilation.

The next moments passed in a flutter of activity. Jasper was able to get a bunch of ampules of Bellerophon from the lab and was getting ready to fly back to Forks to save Bella.

"Are you sure you're not coming with me?" he asked as he made his way out of the building and over to the awaiting car. "For all we know Maria could be miles away right now."

"I have to get the bitch," I growled. "And I think I know where she went."

I really hoped my parents and old man Whitlock hadn't been right after all. When I said that I knew where the bitch went I was only telling a partial truth. I had seen where the bitch was going. She must have made up her mind the moment she closed the door on us because when she looked at I saw snapshot of the forest road right outside Forks and a large modern looking house surrounded by trees. That was were she was going. At least....if my mind wasn't playing tricks on me.

"Use my bike," he said, seeing my resolve. "It's parked over to the side of the main building."

"Thanks!" I grinned, catching the keys he threw at me.

"I'll get there as fast as I can," he said, leaning in for another one of those soft slow kisses I was really starting to love. "I hope it will be on time."

"I hope so too," I sniffed, trying desperately to keep the tears at bay. "I'll see you there."

"Be careful Alice," he pressed. "I don't want to loose you."

"You won't," I said softly, standing on tiptoe to give him one last kiss.

"Well...be careful all the same," he chuckled nervously before getting into the car.

I didn't wait for him to leave before I sprinted back to the main building, running past the doors to the parking lot where Jaspers Ducati was waiting for me, the helmet resting on the seat.

I waisted no time pondering the damage the helmet would do to my hair before slamming it down on my head and firing up the engine. I was glad for the change of clothes and the leather Jacket Jasper had loaned me when I felt the wind sweep around me as I tore through the gate.

I tried not to think of my best friend, lying in a hospital bed as the motorcycle purred underneath me, bringing me to the airport in no time at all. I hoped Jasper would be able to get the antidote to her on time, that was....if it really was Chimera she had been infected with. I didn't dare think of what would happen if it was some other virus.

"Please, please please, let me being a fruitcake do some good for a change........" I muttered as I let the motorcycle run at its maximum speed on my way back to Forks.

* * *

_**If you had any doubts: yes, we've hereby entered the finale. A finale that will answer all of the questions this chapter might have raised like what is going on with Bella and whether Alice is going to get her revenge on Maria.**_

_**A few people have asked me how long this story is going to be. At this moment my outline counts 32 chapters including the epilogue and I don't think that that will be changing (unless James demands another chapter). **_

_**When I'm done writing this story I will focus on the sequel to My Mistakes Were Made For You. I've been getting all sorts of ideas for that one lately and I feel like I have to start writing it soon or my head will explode. Look out for Foundations somewhere in late April/early May.**_

_**I had to cut a rather large portion from this chapter because it disrupted the flow. I plan on posting it on the twilighted boards later tonight so head on over there if you want to read about Jasper picking out a new pair of clothes for Alice. Copy/past the URL and replace the (dot) for actual dots and it will take you there.**_

_**www(dot)twilighted(dot)?f=34&t=2676&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=100**_

_**Next up: Edward.**_


	26. Time is running out

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

* * *

**Time is running out.**

_**(Edward Masen)**_

I awoke the next morning to the very pleasant sensation of Bella kissing a trail of open mouthed kisses down my chest. "Good morning sleepyhead," she chuckled before returning her attention to the task at hand.

"What time is it?" I croaked, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes.

"Six AM," she hummed against my skin, her lips moving lower with determination to my ready and eagerly awaiting dick. "Plenty of time for round two."

"I love you," I grinned. "Did I tell you that?"

"You might have mentioned I," she chuckled, lapping up the fluid that had assembled on my head before placing a kiss on my head, her fingertips tracing a featherlight trail along my shaft.

"Tease," I groaned, folding my arms over my eyes as I felt myself harden to an almost painful degree from her ministrations.

"And don't you love me for it?" she grinned, eying me mischievously before taking me into her mouth, her head slowly bobbing up and down, her hands gripping my base and stroking what her mouth couldn't reach.

I could feel my head hitting the back of her throat as she took in as much of me as she could manage, fastening her pace as she felt me getting closer and closer to my release.

"Feels.....so.....goooood," I panted, my hand fisting in her hair as I felt that familiar tightening feeling in my balls heralding my release. "God....don't stop!"

She hummed, in response, the vibrations reverberating though my dick and sending me straight over the edge moaning her name as I came into her mouth.

She took everything I gave her, sucking me clean before she released me and sat up again, a slight blush tinting her cheeks. I loved those blushes. They told me what she was thinking even when she tried to hide her feelings for me.

"That was amazing," I panted, still coming down from one of the most amazing blowjobs I had received in my life, the other being the one she gave me yesterday. "But now....I believe it's my turn!" I lunged at her, making her squeal as I flipped her around, her back landing on the mattress with a slight bounce.

"You are so beautiful," I sighed, kissing her tenderly before letting my eyes wander over her glorious naked body.

She was perfect in all her imperfection. The scars and bruises telling the story of her life and her occupation – not the hardest part for me to accept, but part of who Bella was none the less. I loved every single fibre of her, everything that made her the woman she was.

My love.

I looked up at her face again to find her gazing down at me with an amused smirk.

"Are you going to lie there and ogle me all day or are you going to do something?" she grinned, her cheeks indicating that she was slightly embarrassed by my staring.

"Oh believe me miss Swan," I purred. "I have every intention to make you cum at least twice before you leave this room."

Her cheeks turned deep read at my words but, judging by the look in her eyes and the smell of her arousal that wasn't all from embarrassment.

I kissed her one last time before making my way down, lingering at her beautiful mounds, her puckered tips greeting me as soon as my lips closed around them, before kissing my way down her perfect flat stomach, taking care not to touch her bruises as I slowly inched lower.

"Who's the tease now," she groaned, her ribcage moving with her increased breath.

"And don't you love me for it?" I chuckled, throwing her own words back at her, before taking her clit between my lips and sucking gently on it.

"Edward," she moaned, her back arching into the mattress as I felt her body tighten.

"Yes my angel?" I purred, letting go of her clit for now and focusing my attention on the rest of her center, lapping up the juices that had gathered there. I groaned as the taste of Bella – pure, unadulterated Bella – hit my pallet. I could eat her all day and be perfectly content. She tasted like heaven. Bella and heaven.

"Please," she panted.

"What do you want me to do love?" I asked, feigning ignorance as I removed my mouth from her completely.

"Your....hands," she groaned in pure frustration.

"Yes...." I replied.

"I want them on me...." she half growled.

"Like this, you mean?" I asked, slipping two of my fingers inside her hot core and moving in an out slowly.

"Yesssss," she moaned, the sight of her completely flustered face making me decide I had teased her enough.

I added a third finger as my lips found their way to her throbbing clit again, sucking and nipping at her tender flesh as I felt her slowly moving towards her release underneath me.

"Edward," she panted, looking down at me with a mixture of love and lust in her eyes.

"Let go love," I muttered, craning my fingers in a search for her G-spot.

Almost the moment my fingers found their mark and started to gently stimulate it, I could feel her whole body starting to shake underneath me, her heals digging into the mattress as her orgasm racked through her with a shattering force.

I rejoiced inwardly, knowing that it was me, and only me, who did this to her. I moved up her body again to kiss her deeply and profoundly, my dick twitching against my stomach at the thought that she would probably be able to taste herself on my lips.

I guided my erection to her entrance, looking into her eyes for permission before I entered her.

"Please," she whispered, closing her eyes as I sheathed myself fully inside her warmth, bot of us groaning with pleasure at the feeling.

Being like this, being inside Bella. It felt so...right. Like it was meant to be. Like she was made for me. Only me.

Our bodies fit. They moved together in perfect synchronization, registering the others need even before they had realized it.

"Open you eyes Bella," I demanded, grasping her wrists in mine and entwining our hands above her head as I moved inside her.

She looked at me, love floating freely between the two of us as our movements and sounds slowly grew more urgent and demanding, both of us getting close to our release.

"I love you," she whispered, locking her ankles around my back, pulling me even deeper inside her. "Forever."

"Forgiver," I repeated, my lips crashing onto hers in a searing kiss as we both flew over the edge, her walls clamping around me as I spilled inside of her.

"I don't want to leave this room," she groaned as we lay in each others arms, our bodies slick with sweat as we tried to catch our breaths.

"Then don't," I sighed..

"You know Rose," she snorted. "She'll kick down the door with no regard for what she's going to find on the other side of it if I don't make it into the office at eight o clock sharp.

--

One joined shower, round three and a hasty cup of coffee later Bella was sitting next to me in the car, biting her lip as she stared out of the window, nervousness radiating off of her in huge waves.

"I'm going to get fired, I know that much," Bella shrugged, finally breaking the silence. "The only hope I have is that Rose won't dismember me."

"It'll be alright," I soothed, taking her hand as I tried to calm her down a little. "Perhaps they'll even be able to understand why you did it."

"I doubt that," she snorted.

"I heard the tape," I shrugged. "I can imagine what it did to you."

"Are you defending my actions agent Masen?" she chuckled. "I thought you called me reckless and stupid yesterday."

"You're still reckless and stupid," I shrugged, bringing our entwined hands to my lips. "But that doesn't mean that I don't understand why you were being reckless and stupid. They heard the tape as well, baby...."

"Doesn't matter," she said stubbornly while I pulled into the parking lot next to the building of Cullen Investigations. "I'm still going to get fired."

"I love you, no matter what happens," I told her as I kissed her goodbye. "Will you let me know as soon as your meeting finishes?"

"I take it you're not braving the dragons with me?" she grinned, leaning in for another kiss.

"I would love to but Garrett called while you were brushing your teeth. Apparently something is going on at the hospital."

"Tell him I said hi," she sighed, putting on a determined face as she got out of the car. "Wish me luck," she spoke over her shoulder.

"Good luck, love," I replied. "Call me as soon as you know more."

She lingered on the sidewalk, waving goodbye as I made my way down the street at a snails pace, relishing my last glances at Bella before she left my sight.

I thought I had lost her yesterday. When Rose had called, telling me Bella had been detected by Aro Volturi while breaking into his office my heart had stopped. Fortunately the expertly trained special agent in me had taken over right there and then, mobilizing just about every cop in a five mile radius within half an hour and basically shoving the voicemail message, which Rose had given me, down their throats while ordering them to invade Volterra Towers.

Bella wasn't the only one in danger of loosing their job.....

In the end not even Alistair Trevelyan had been able to stop us and Eleazar, though seething with rage, had promised to keep an eye on his boss when we left, preventing him from contacting Aro.

I had been so close to loosing her.

I had seen the debate in Aro's eyes as he held a gun to her head. In the end opportunism and Rose's balls of solid steel winning out and saving Bella's life.

Just in the knick of time.

"Ah! Masen!" Garrett greeted me at the main entrance of Forks General Hospital. "Back from cloud nine?"

"Shut up Scully," I growled. "What have you got?"

"Mall security found a homeless guy this morning, hanging out in front of the mall looking kind of shady. They thought he'd overdosed or something so they called in an ambulance."

"I take it he isn't a junk?"

"Not as far as we know," Garrett explained. "They soon found out in the ER that he wasn't suffering from an overdose but from a virus."

"Shit," I muttered, letting out a huge breath of air. "A second victim. And they are dumping them at about the busiest spot in town.....a disaster waiting to happen."

"Yep," Garrett nodded solemnly, leading me up a couple of escalators and down a corridor to a room that was shielded off by a glass wall, detective Mulder standing in front of it. "They got him up to quarantine but he won't be speaking to us any time soon. We've got an appointment at the morgue for the post mortem of the guy they brought in yesterday though."

It was strange, coming back to the place where I met the love of my life, but I didn't have much time to reminisce on the past. We changed into protective clothing as fast as we could before joining doctor Ryan and detective Mulder at the lab.

"Do we know more about him?" I asked, looking at the sorry pile of human being lying on the table in front of us.

"Fingerprints identify him as Michael Newton, some rich kid who's hanging with the wrong crowd," Garrett explained. "He was bailed out of Forks Penitentiary days ago by his lawyer."

"His lawyer?" I asked. Usually it was some family member who came to post bail, not their legal aids.

"A woman called Madison Lee," Garrett answered, gazing at the victim with a look of utter fascination. "McGee is looking into it. Is that guy frothing?"

"A little respect for a dying man you idiot," detective Mulder scowled, slapping him up the head.

"Owch, bitch," he yelled, grabbing the back of his hand. "What did you have to do that for?"

"You were acting like a dick," she shrugged. "How is the poor guy upstairs is doing?"

"Not too good," Garrett said, shaking his head. "They don't think he's going to last much longer. Did you guys come up with any leads on who dumped him at the mall yet?"

"No," she sighed, looking a little frustrated. "Denali put every available cop on it but so far they've found nothing but the surveillance tape showing Newton being pushed out of a black Hummer with tinted windows. They found no trace of it, other than that it belonged to Newton."

"Is Denali still......." I started.

"Yep," she grinned. "If I were you I'd steer my pretty little ass clear of the police station for a while if you want it to remain pretty."

"Hey!" Garrett growled offended. "What about my ass?"

"Yours isn't in danger idiot," Mulder shrugged, rolling her eyes. "but if it helps you sleep at night.....you have a very pretty little ass too. Okay now?"

"Yes sweetheart," Garrett grinned, much to Mulder's chagrin. "And you know you love me."

"In your dreams boyscout," Mulder huffed, before turning to leave. "In. Your. Fucking. Dreams."

"And in yours as well darlin'!" Garrett yelled after her as she walked away with that sexy kind of walk that women use when they want to break a man down.

Judging by the way Garrett was barely able to keep himself from drooling as his eyes were fixed on her ass, sashaying down the corridor, it was working.

Eleazar hadn't exactly been thrilled when I barged into his office yesterday and basically started ordering him to invade Volterra Towers. He had agreed – after perhaps the most tormenting moments of my life – after he had heard the tape from Bella's answering machine but he had made it very clear to me that this was overstepping the bounds of our friendship. I couldn't blame him, not that I wouldn't do it again in a heartbeat.

"Wanna go back to your little ladybird again?" Garrett grinned as soon as Mulder was out of sight.

"More than anything in the world," I replied, visions of Bella writhing underneath me from earlier this morning floating through my head. "But we have to go meet this doctor."

"Right," Garrett sighed. "I forgot about that."

With the virus out in the open the threat James was posing to public health had become incredibly critical. Not only did we have to find the bastards, and fast, before he could be able to spread the disease even further, we would also have to be very careful in what we told the outside world.

If word got out that a highly contagious and very lethal virus was out in the open, complete panic would break loose. People would try to leave town and possibly take the virus with them. They would spread the disaster all of Washington and beyond.

On the other hand, if we didn't issue some kind of warning the virus might spread from people coming into contact with one another and that was something we sure as hell wanted to prevent as well. It was a good thing I knew a team from the Center for Disease Control was on its way. They had much more experience in dealing with these kind of things. Perhaps they would be able to keep this thing under control before it spread.

"What are we telling this doctor?" Garrett asked as we were walking up to the office of doctor Carter, chief of staff of Forks General Hospital.

"As much as we can about the virus while revealing as little as we can about its origin," I said. For now the fact that there was a terrorist on the loose armed with a lethal virus was something that was on a strict need to know base and the medical staff, though they had to known about the virus, did not need to know about the threat.

"Right," Garrett chuckled. "You do the talking."

"Smart," I grinned, pulling my phone out of my pocket to see if I had any new messages from Bella. I smiled when I saw her name flash across the screen.

_Things went surprisingly well over here. Any news on the virus? _

_Heading home to shower. Meet me there?_

I grinned, quickly composing a reply.

_Can't wait. Give me an hour or so to wrap things up over here._

_I'll fill you in on the latest developments when we meet._

"Oh to be young and in love again," Garrett sang, pulling me into a tight embrace while ruffling my hair.

"Keep your fucking hands to yourself Scully!" I huffed, shoving the annoying git away from me.

"What?" he complained in a mock hurt tone. "Are you afraid your girlfriend is going to be jealous?"

"That'll be it," I groaned, announcing our arrival to the secretary who appeared to be highly amused by the scene unfolding in front of her.

"The doctor will see you in a minute gentlemen," she chuckled, motioning for us to take a seat.

--

We stepped out of the office of doctor Carter about an hour later and completely robbed of the illusion we could keep anything a secret from the guy. He would have been my hero if only he hadn't been so annoying. It was like he was reading our minds as we spoke.

Garrett hadn't exactly been useful either. I knew smart and cultured people kind of freaked him out but I had relied on his years of interrogation training to kick in. Apparently that training hadn't prepared him for the kind of duress the good doctor provided because he had cracked almost the moment the doctor turned his cool, calculating gaze on him.

Even my own control had failed.

I guess I had been too busy trying to find out why the guy sounded so familiar to me that I hadn't paid attention to the fact that he was wheedling classified information out of me like he had done nothing else in his life. The guy would have made a damn good detective.

What was even worse was that I hadn't even managed to find out where I knew the guy from.

At least I could get back to Bella now. Being away from her was getting to be an almost painful affair, especially now that nothing was standing in the way of our love. I couldn't wait to have my arms around her again, breathe in her scent.

I wondered if she would be opposed to do our debriefing naked and on top of me.....

"For God's sake man, get your fucking mind out of the gutter!" Garrett growled. "If there is one thing a guy doesn't want to see it's his partner sporting wood. It would lead to me picturing you having sex and being naked and that's just .......fucking unhealthy."

"At least I'm getting some," I replied, rolling my eyes while making some adjustments to my pants. "That's more than you can say."

"I'm working on it," he huffed, almost ripping the passenger door out of his hinges as he opened it.

"Yeah right," I laughed. "So where do you want me to drop you off?"

"Police Headquarters?" he asked. "I could fill in the rest of the detectives while you're off playing 'hide the salami' with your girlfriend."

"Shut up Garrett!" I growled, tearing out of the parking lot.

"It's not like I'm talking bullshit," he grinned. "You have that aura of 'horny devil going home to sex up his girl' coming off you in waves."

"Just keep your mouth shut for the rest of the ride, will ya?" I snarled, gripping the steering wheel a little tighter in my hands.

He kept his promise right until I dropped him off in front of the station. I guess I should have known better than to expect him to leave without throwing a 'go get her tiger!' my way.

By that time I was just glad to get rid of the guy and focus on getting to Bella's apartment as fast as I could without attracting the attention of traffic cops. I had hidden behind my badge too many times for Gibbs to let another speeding ticket be remitted without there being consequences involved.

I sped up to her door and knocked, waiting impatiently to be admitted to Bella's home. To heaven.

No answer.

Strange.

I quickly debated my options. I could use my master key like I had done before but, considering the reaction that had caused the last time, I didn't think it would be a very smart move.

No. Calling first would be the safer option.

I picked my phone out of my pocket and dialed the number. I could hear Bella's ringtone playing on the other side of the door, but I didn't hear anyone move to pick up.

Strange. Bella should be home right now. Perhaps she was in the shower?

By that time my master key was almost chanting my name but still I resisted. I had been lucky enough to have been forgiven one time, I wouldn't push my luck.

About ten minutes and a dozen phone calls later though, concern won out on fear of rejection and I opened the door, the sight in front of me in the living room kicking the air straight out of my lungs.

In the middle of the living room floor lay Tanya Denali in a pool of blood, her eyes staring out in front of her, fixed on a point that wasn't visible to whose who lived.

Next to her, crumpled up like a rag doll, lay the most precious thing in the world, looking equally lifeless.

No.

I was by her side in a minute, breathing a sigh of relief when I saw her move right before I reached it.

"Bella!" I cried, moving her on her back as I checked her body for visible injuries. There were none, apart from the fact that she was sweating profusely and her face was as pale as the dead.

"Get away from me Edward," she croaked, sounding like she was dying of thirst. "I'm poison."

"What happened, honey," I demanded, almost frantically, as I fished my phone out of my pocket again. "You have to talk to me."

"Get away from me Edward," she repeated in an anguished wail. "It's the virus..........I'm infected with the virus."

"No," I growled. "It is something else. Don't think like that."

"She....." Bella coughed, "She.....injected....me....with the stuff."

Sure enough, I saw a syringe lying somewhere across the room but I still would not – could not – believe it.

"_911 Emergency response. How can I help you?" _a female voice asked in an all to chipper tone.

I quickly rattled off all the information she needed, while Bella made a vain attempt to struggle free from my hold, complaining incessantly about me needing to back off for my own safety.

Silly woman. Like I was ever going to do that! I would not let her go, not even if it killed me.

After what seemed like an eternity of cradling my Bella in my arms, watching her deteriorate under my eyes, the ambulance finally arrived.

I had made a quick call to doctor Carter, notifying him of my arrival and Bella's suspicions before we arrived. Even though a part of me wouldn't believe this was happening, I was slowly starting to realize that Bella had spoken the truth. She was showing all the signs and the speed with which the virus had manifested itself in her body could only point to one thing.

"I am coming with her," I growled at the paramedic as they pushed the gurney holding Bella into their vehicle. I had never let go of her hand, not even while they had assessed her situation.

I had made a promise to myself. I would never let go.

I guess the paramedic deemed it safer for public health not to argue with me but rolled his eyes as I followed him into the ambulance.

Smart man.

The trip to the hospital went by in a blur and before I knew it I felt some annoying bastard tugging at my arm and telling me I had to leave as they pushed the gurney through some hospital corridor.

"Let go of me!" I growled, shrugging the guy away.

"If you would be so kind as to let go of miss Swan?" a doctor who's face I couldn't see because it was being obscured by a hazmat suit asked. "We need to assess her status as well as yours."

"You can do that with me holding her," I barked, tightening my grip on Bella's hand. She looked so pale, so fragile, almost as if the slighted wisp of air could take away her life. She had drifted into unconsciousness somewhere during our ride to the hospital and had not opened her eyes since. The only signs of her being alive being the beeping of the heart monitor and the groans and moans of pain she was emitting in her fevered state.

I didn't want to let go, not just because I promised myself not to, but because I feared that if I allowed myself to be dragged away this might have been the last time I saw her alive. The though of it, of Bella leaving me behind, caused a loud sob to leave my throat, making me realize I was on the verge of breaking down.

No.

Be strong.

Be a man.

Be the man Bella needs right now.

"I'm calling in security," the doctor warned.

"You do that sir," I replied, never taking my eyes off Bella. "I'm not leaving."

"Edward," Bella's weak voice drifted into the room. "Do what the doctor says."

"I'm not leaving your side," I said determinedly.

She moved her body slightly upwards, wincing as it protested against every move she made, before shooting a weak glare in my direction. "Edward Antony Masen get the hell out of here before I kick you out of this room myself!"

"What if anything happens to you?" I yelled exasperated, unable to even laugh at her joke. "I'll never forgive myself if I'm not here."

"And I'll never forgive myself if I infected you," she growled back, coughing as she sagged back onto the hospital bed. "Gentleman....please....take good care of him."

I looked behind me to see three huge guys in hazmat-suits looming in the doorway. That would be security I presumed.

"Just stay alive baby," I pleaded. "And don't do anything stupid."

"I'll be in a quarantine room," she smiled faintly as she pried her hand out of my grip. "How much trouble do you think I'll be able to cause in there?"

"It's Bella Swan we're talking about here," I answered with a halfhearted smile, kissing her lips one final time before the security guards pulled me away from her. I thought I saw a tear gliding down her cheek through my own fogged vision right before she was out of sight.

It was like my world had turned black, like all hope had gone and I was left to linger behind in a cold, deserted place until my time on this planet would come to an end.

Stop.

I must stop this.

Bella will live.

The constant repeat of those words got me through those first agonizing moments after leaving Bella's side. Doctors filed in and out of the quarantine unit they had put me in, drawing blood and hooking me up to an array of wires and other equipment to assess my state. I let it all happen without paying much attention, they all looked the same in their ridiculous outfits anyway.

"Edward!" I heard the combined voices of Garrett and Emmett thunder through the room before I even saw them on the opposite side of the glass wall that separated my room from the corridor. I hopped off my bed and rushed to the glass wall as fast as my feet could carry me, reaching it even before Garrett and Emmett.

"Have you seen Bella?" It were the only words that had left my mouth since saying goodbye to Bella but they had never been answered satisfactory.

"We just left her," Emmett sighed, his face betraying his emotions. "She's hanging in there Edward and the doctors are doing everything they can....Rose is still with her."

"Did she say anything?"

"She was unconscious while we were there," Emmett replied, hanging his head in sadness. "She looked so...frail."

"I know," I groaned, fighting hard to keep myself from breaking down in front of them. I had to stay strong. I owed it to Bella.

"Was Tanya dead when you got to the apartment," Garrett asked, changing the subject. It was only then that I realized they weren't just paying a social visit.

"She was," I nodded. "I never moved her or touched anything apart from Bella."

"Did she tell you what happened?" Garrett asked next, moving a little closer to the glass wall.

"No," I sighed, "the only thing she told me was that that bitch injected her with the virus. She must have been waiting for her when she got home."

I groaned, realizing that if only I would have ditched the meeting with doctor Carter when I got her message Bella would have been safe. I could have have stopped Tanya. I should have stopped Tanya. Something told me that it I was to blame for this. I had failed to protect her again. This time with fatal consequences.

"This isn't your fault Masen!" Garrett yelled, his fist smashing into the wall beside my face. "Man up and try to find a way out of this mess!"

"There is no way out of this mess!" I yelled back. "Bella is going to die and there is nothing we can do."

"Shut the fuck up!" Emmett roared, his voice reverberating through the glass. "If you ever say that again I'm going to break through that wall and rip your fucking throat out with my bare hands. Bella is going to live and you better fucking believe that or you're even more unworthy of her than I thought you'd be." He glared at me, trying to catch his breath before continuing. "We can all sit here in a group sobfest pulling out our hair and crying like a bunch of chicks or we can do the man thing and catch the son of a hitch who's responsible for this and beat him into a pulp."

"I vote for the latter," Garrett snorted.

"Great plan," I sighed. "But there always the problem of not knowing where the bastard lives."

"From what I heard Tanya didn't strike me as the most secretive of people," Garrett replied. "Maybe if we go through her things we'll be able to find something."

"Sounds like a plan," I nodded. "Did anyone tell Eleazar yet?"

"Mulder did," Garrett sighed. "He's devastated."

"I can imagine," I said flatly. I felt bad for Eleazar but considering the bitch's last action on earth had been the attempted murder of the most precious thing in my life, I could not lament the loss of Tanya Denali.

In fact, had she been alive I would have probably killed her myself.

"What are you two standing here for?" I growled, composing myself again. "Go find the bastard!"

"We'll beet him into a pulp for ya Stalkward!" Emmett nodded, clenching and flexing his fist before he turned to leave. "Just hang in here and try not to kill yourself with gloomy thoughts buddie. My baby is keeping an eye on your baby. I'll make sure she checks in with you every now and then."

"Thanks," I sighed. "Let me know as soon as you catch the son of a bitch."

As soon as Garrett and Emmett left I sagged back on the bed, trying to think of something – anything – that might proof useful.

Rose came by once to tell me Bella was still much the same and once after that, right after nightfall had made the gloomy hospital corridor even gloomier, stating there was some kind of emergency at the office that needed her immediate attention. Something about Emmett hitting a panic button or something...

Before she left she ensured me that Bella was being taken care off by the best doctor this hospital had to offer, the chief of staff himself, and that he would fill me in on her situation as soon as he was able to.

I spend the night pacing up and down the tiny space that held me captive. It was the only fucking thing I could do, except for cursing that apeshit of an ER-doctor to the fiery pits of hell for taking me away from Bella.

"Mr. Masen?" It was somewhere during the night that a deep voice stirred me from my thoughts. I looked up to see doctor Carter in a lab coat and scrubs standing at the other side of the glass wall. He looked like he'd had as rough a night as I had.

"Any news on Bella?" I yelled, almost running up to the glass.

As if yelling would change a fucking thing.

"Her condition stabilized a little over the last couple of hours," the doctor stated in a solemn voice, "though she is still very much in danger."

"Can't you fucking do anything about it?" I growled, pounding my fist against the glass.

"There is nothing to do but wait...and pray," he sighed, his voice laced with sadness and regret. "Tests have shown that parts of this virus can be traced back to the Avian Flu virus so we've gotten her on a high dose of Tamiflu, the drug commonly used to treat that particular disease."

"Why can't I see her?" I snarled.

"You know why," the doctor stated calmly, not at all fazed by my anger. "You were in contact with her and even though you show no signs of infection yet, there's no way of being sure you're not infected."

"Then put me in that fucking room with her," I insisted.

"And be sure you're going to die right along with her?" the doctor quipped. "Even if I would be willing to throw my career and even my own better judgment out of the window, do you really think that's what Bella would want?"

I sighed, turning my back to him as I sank to the floor, my back freezing up with the cold glass pressing into it.

He was right. Bella would use her last breath to push me out of the door the moment I stepped into that room.

Silly girl.

Silly amazing girl.

As if there would be a point to my life without her in it.

I chuckled inwardly at my own thoughts. How long did I know her? Not even as long as a fortnight. Wasn't that a little soon to go all Romeo on her Juliet?

No.

I had know it the moment I first saw her. She was perfection and she was perfect for me. Every cell of my being called out to her in a way you'd only read about in books or snort at when it happened in movies.

It was surreal.

It was frightening.

It was love.

Pure, unconditional and irrational love.

"Edward?" the doctor asked. "Believe me....we're doing everything in our powers to save her."

"I know," I groaned, the image of Bella lying on the floor of her apartment, so weak and fragile it almost looked like she was dead, flashing in front of my eyes again.

"I'll get back to you as soon as I know more," he added. "Or if anything happens....."

"Thank you," I interrupted before he could finish that sentence. I leaned my head on my arms and closed my eyes as I heard the doctors footsteps retreat down the deserted corridor while I tried to concentrate on the case. Maybe if I could think of something that would bring us to James Bella might be saved in time.

I knew I was being a total cad for reacting so unkindly to the doctors kind words. He was only trying to help and, as he said, he did everything in his power to make my Bella fight this new threat off.

But that was just it. There was nothing that could be done.

The thought that Bella was in danger – a danger no SWAT team could save her from – and that I was completely powerless to help her was like my worst nightmare come true. I had always been a man of action, a man of practical solutions. Right now, when everything in me told me to act and protect, I was forced to step aside and sit back, helpless and dependent.

I don't know how much time had passed – it was still dark so it couldn't have been more than a few hours – when I heard footsteps approaching me again. From the sound of them – heavy and almost hesitant – I knew it wasn't doctor Carter.

Perhaps some other doctor?

I looked up as the footsteps grew louder, my curiosity quickly fading into anger when I recognized Garret.

What was the dumb fuck doing here? He was supposed to be watching Bella. What if something happened to her while he was off gallivanting across the hospital?

"What the fuck........."I hissed through my teeth, trying to prevent myself from ripping though the glass wall to strangle my partner.

It was then that I saw what caused his steps to be so heavy and hesitant. His head was bandaged and he looked completely out of it.

"I'm so sorry Edward," he slurred, sounding like he could collapse any moment.

"What is it?" I yelled, panic creeping up on me fast and relentless.

"It's Bella," Garrett croaked. "She's disappeared........"

* * *

_**The plot thickens. So far James' plan is working perfectly. First he infects Bella, getting her to exactly the spot where he wants her, then he distracts Rose, giving him the perfect opportunity to strike. What's next? What will Edward do?**_

_**I think it's not really difficult to guess who doctor Carter is. As far as I'm concerned he has the face of Carlisle but the name and background of doctor Carter from ER. Of course you're free to imagine him differently. Coming up with a name for the guy was actually pretty hard. He's been called Townsend (too corny even for me), doctor Wayne ( I kept on imagining a cowboy in scrubs) and doctor Cooper (right until I did some research into Nurse Jackie). I think doctor carter works best out of these options.**_

**_Next up: Emmett_**


	27. Tick, tick, tick, BOOM

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

* * *

**Heads up: this chapter contains heavy fighting and lots of language.**

* * *

**Tick, tick, tick.....................BOOM.**

_**(Emmett 'Bosley' McCarty)**_

I chuckled as I returned the phone to its usual spot on the table. For all her lack in height that pixie could sure be scary when she was angry. Sometimes when she got really mad and started stomping her feet and barking out profanities at a dazzling speed she'd remind me a little of that Sharky character from _Eek!The cat_. Scary but still kind of cute, though I would never tell her that when she was angry. I involuntarily moved my hand over my dick as I remembered how working at Cullen Investigations had taught me the hard way not to make fun of women – especially not those who worked for Carlisle – when they were pissed off.

It was a good thing she wouldn't be here when Bella came in because I had no fucking doubt in my mind it would have ended up in a bitch fight and – as much as I would like to kick back and enjoy the shit out of that – it would do us no good to have the girls render themselves out of service.

Now just wait until the other angry young woman – otherwise known as my girl – entered the building. Perhaps if I convinced her to go for another round office sexin' she would have lost most of her anger towards Bella by eight AM. Not that I didn't think Bella would deserve a good old bitch slap for the crazy stunt she had pulled yesterday, but I didn't think Rosie would be able to keep it at that.

Hell, if my girl went on a roll ambulances would have to be involved and that most certainly wasn't the kind of stuff we needed to be focusing on right now.

"Are you daydreaming again?" Rose snorted from the door opening.

"And what if I am, my pet?" I crooned back at her. I knew she went all weak in the knees when I lowered my voice like that.

"I thought I told you not to call me your pet," she huffed, stalking into the room. "If I remember correctly we established that it is I who does in fact own you."

"Yes ma'am." I swallowed hard, remembering how it had felt to be tied to the bed and be delivered at the mercy of my own personal angel. My own insatiable, fucking gorgeous girlfriend.

"I think you we have a little situation on our hands there cowboy," she grinned, pointing one of her red fingernails at my groin.

"I thought we also established that there's nothing little about that situation darlin'," I quipped.

"Want me to fix that for you?" she chuckled, eying my dick like it was a fucking jelly filled donut.

Hell to the yes!

"Yes please," I replied a little too eagerly. Fuck. There goes my cool collected macho man facade.

I took a step back and let my body sag into my office chair. She was by my side and on her knees in less than a second, her hands turning me fucking crazy as she made sure to brush me over my painfully hard cock as often as she could while unbuttoning my pants.

"You know....," she mused. "We never did get to finish last time...."

"I know," I groaned as I watched her plump red lips encase my dick. So good. So fucking good.

"Oh for fuck's sake!" I heard Bella yell. "I know this morning is all about my punishment but for the sake of all that is holy will you keep your dick covered please Bosley?"

Even though she looked mighty cranky right now Bella had that whole post fucking coital glow hanging around her like a cheap perfume. She definitely got her some last night.

I couldn't decide whether that realization made me happy or disappointed. Sure, far be it for me to deny someone a good lay but the fact that Bella's perky little tits seemed to have turned Edward from 'angry action man' into 'horny fifteen year old boy' that fast was a bit of a let down. Not that I would have managed to hold out any longer, but I mean...if there was anyone I would have imagined capable of keeping his dick in his pants long enough for them to actually talk about the shit that went down yesterday it was that Masen guy. Apparently he was a much of a dude as the rest of us though....

"You're early," Rose answered curtly, standing up and straightening herself out as she glared at her fellow angel.

"I figured I might as well score some brownie points by behaving myself," Bella snorted. "That was obviously a mistake."

"Of all the days to be sucking up to your boss you had to pick the day I was planning to do the same?" Rose chuckled.

"Yeah, well....." Bella stammered, blushing deep red. "I had some other plans in mind. No offense Bosley."

"None taken," I waved, figuring it was probably best to joke along with them although my poor balls felt like they could fucking explode at any minute."You're way to scary to be getting admission to the Emmett McCarthy fun park anyway."

"The Emmett McCarty fun park?" both girls snorted in unison.

"I pity you Rose." Bella panted, looking like she was going to fucking choke."You have to put up with that every day!"

"Well at least he makes up for it in other departments," Rose snorted, holding on the Bella like she were a fucking life buoy.

"That's right," I grumbled. "Just keep talking like I'm not even fucking here. What the matter with you anyway Rosie? I thought you were supposed to be yelling at her?"

I saw Bella take a tentative step backwards at my words, no doubt expecting the big battle to commence.

"Right," Rose huffed, tightening her eyes to tiny slits as she turned back towards Bella. "I could say 'I told you so,' but that doesn't even come close to covering the completely nasty little stunt you pulled yesterday."

"I'm sorry," Bella whispered, looking very much like a little girl right now.

"Sorry doesn't cover it either," Rose fumed. "You could have gotten yourself killed so easily in that fucking tower and then what would we have done?"

"Look," Bella stated, holding her hands up in surrender as she visibly battled her tears. "There's a thousand fucking things I'm sorry for. I'm sorry for being such an easy target. I'm sorry for dragging you into all of my shit. I'm sorry for barging ass first into a trap. I'm sorry for the fact that you had to come in to save my miserable ass. I'm sorry for everything I forgot and I'm fucking sorry for the fact that sorry doesn't even begin to cover the stupid things I've done......."

I could sense Rosie gearing up for another snide remark but the sight of the little heartbroken squirt in front of me kind of broke my heart.

"Take a breather Rosie," I suggested. "The girl is sorry. She said so herself."

"What the fuck Emmett?" Rose growled and I closed my eyes a little, half expecting her to slap me. "You were supposed to be on MY side."

"And I am babe," I explained. "But that doesn't mean I will stand by and watch you lay into Bella like that. She was supposed to come in to talk, not go ten rounds with you without her having even the slightest inclination of fighting back."

Thank the big man up above for ringing phones or I thought Rosie would have gone for the jewels right now. And not in any way I would like. She was really starting to get scary, standing so fucking close to me as she looked like she was about to explode into little fragments of seething rage.

At least Carlisle's call gave me the excuse to put some space between me and my very angry girlfriend. At least....if she'd still be my girl after this.

"_Good morning angels."_ Carlisle's voice didn't sound like its usual upbeat self as he started off with his usual greeting.

"Good morning Carlisle." Now if I had thought Carlisle sounded off, the girls sounded downright comical – that was....if I had been in the mood to laugh about all of this shit. Bella sounded like she didn't know whether to commit ritual suicide to make up for the mess she had made or hide in a corner and cry, while Rose sounded somewhere halfway between murderous and disappointed mom.

"_We all know why we are here this morning,"_ Carlisle continued, "s_o why don't you girls take a seat and calm down so that we can discus what happened yesterday in a calm and dignified manner." _

What the fuck?

How did the guy know that Bella and Rose were standing in the middle of the room, locked in the beginning stages of a one sided bitch fight?

Was I being watched?

God I didn't hope so because that would mean Carlisle knew about that time a couple of days ago when Rose went down on me in the office and then again this morning....oh and all those times I did some 'self help'.

Shit.

Did this mean I had to expect Bob fucking Saget popping out of a drawer at any time to hand me a trophy for America's Funniest Home Video?

"Can I say something?" Bella asked timidly, breaking the laden silence.

"No," Rose growled.

"_Of course, Isabella," _Carlisle's smooth voice spoke.

"I did a stupid thing, the most stupid thing an angel can do and I accept every consequence of it."

"_Thank you Bella," _Carlisle replied solemnly. _"You put us in a rather difficult situation yesterday. I've spend most part of last night on the phone with field director Gibbs and Eleazar Denali, who is now the acting Chief of Police after Alistair Trevelyan was arrested late last evening, trying to prevent them from pressing charges against us for disrupting a criminal investigation. They did, however, require some sacrifices from my part." _

"I'm sorry Carlisle," Bella continued, hiding her face behind her hair as she folded her arms and legs around her frail little body. "....and I understand."

"_However....."_ Carlisle continued. _"There are some things we need to take into account here. " He paused and you could have cut the silence that fell in my office with a knife. "Having reviewed the tape and given your family's past with the Volturi I understand why you did it, though I cannot condone your actions....."_ I let out a little bit of the air I'd been holding. Could it be that I didn't have to fire the little squirt after all? _".....and given the fact that we are in the middle of the largest and most dangerous operation we have been in to date I don't think firing you would be a wise decision." _

"But....." Bella started, lifting her head from her knees.

"_Gibbs and Denali seemed to agree with me that we need you right now, though you will be under strict scrutiny all the time. One more mistake like that and you will loose your job." _

"Thank you Carlisle," Bella sniffed. "I promise to work my ass off to make you proud of me again, though I would understand if that will take a while."

"_I am proud of how you handled yourself in Aro Volturi's office yesterday"_ Carlisle spoke. _"You did a very wrong thing but you handled yourself like a true angel in there even when faced with death. If only you could one day reign in your impetuosity you would rank among the greatest." _

"Is that it?" Rose asked. "You're just going to slap her on the wrist and let her get away with it?" I didn't think it was anger or malice that made my Rosie say it, just concern.

To the outsider Rose might come across as a cold hearted bitch but when you got to know her you found out she was just one big mother goose who just had kind of a itchy way of expressing herself. I guess that's what happens when you spend seventeen years getting all soft feelings slapped out of you by your snobby parents only to end up getting gang raped by your boyfriend and cast away like an old shoe by mommy and daddy who didn't think a scandal would help them in their social aspirations.

"_I have no doubt that Bella is punishing herself severely enough as it is,"_ Carlisle explained. _"However when this case if resolved I do want her to see a therapist to help her deal with everything that has happened to her family." _

"Anything," Bella whispered, her arms and legs still folded around her like a cocoon.

"_You got a lucky escape this time,"_ Carlisle warned. "_You might not be so lucky next time. If you want to continue working as an angel you have to learn how to be cautious and calm in every circumstance." _

"I know," Bella's muffled reply came from behind her sweats.

"_With that being said I think we should return to the matter at hand," _Carlisle concluded. _"Yesterday the first victim of the virus was brought into Forks General Hospital and I don't think we have any reason to assume that it will be the last. The good news is that as far as we know Mike Newton hasn't infected anyone around him with the virus. For now we need to focus all our efforts on finding James and stopping him before this can get any further. Do you have any new leads on his whereabouts?" _

"Unfortunately...no," I sighed. It was like the damn prick vanished into thin air as soon as drove away from us at the hospital only to pop back up again on the surveillance tapes when he shoved Mike Newton out of a car – Mike Newton's own car - outside the mall yesterday.

"What if they took the car back to their place after they dropped Newton off?" Rose wondered aloud. "It hasn't been found yet so that's still an option."

"I don't think James would make a mistake like that," Bella chimed in, their argument temporarily forgotten.

"Everyone makes mistakes," Rose playfully sneered. "Even sick fucks like James. I could go check out the surveillance tapes from the traffic police. Maybe they'll point us in the right direction."

"_An excellent idea,"_ Carlisle praised. _"I'll leave you to your work then. Good luck angels! And remember: safety comes first." _

"Yeah, yeah," Rose rolled her eyes at the phone after she had made sure Carlisle had hung up first.

"Need help?" Bella offered.

"Why don't you go freshen up first?" Rose snorted. "You look like you haven't slept all night and you smell like sex. I'll pick you up when I'm done at the police station and we can go check out the leads together."

"Fine by me," Bella said timidly. "And Rose?"

"Yes,"

"I'm sorry."

"I know," Rose sighed, ruffling Bella's hair. "Just don't do it again or I'll have to strangle you."

"So y'all wanna kiss and make up now?" I grinned, trying to break the tension. "You know....I won't be opposed to seeing a little girl on girl action...." At least being considered a dumb hick had one huge advantage: you could always open up a tight situation by making some dumb fuck remark and have everyone laughing again. Sure, they'd be laughing at you but – as my momma used to say – a smile is a smile. And hey, smiling sure as hell beat awkward silence. Hell! If all else failed I could always laugh at myself!

But then again, judging by the murderous glares both women were sending me as they walked out of the office, cracking jokes at inopportune moments could also be as dangerous as kissing a hungry lion on the mouth.

Right. I was still in the doghouse. Well, I might as well get some work done while I was in there. Sighing to myself I grabbed my phone to see if I could get hold of the pixie. I was sure she was dying to know how it all went, as I was dying to know how things were going at Whitlock's lab.

Straight to voice mail. Great.

"Damn! Why don't these girls answer their damned phones?" returning the phone to its place. "It's not like that's so much to ask."

I tried to reach her again a couple of times over the next few hours but each time the phone rang four times before I was connected to the annoyingly chirpy sound of Alice's voicemail. When I gave up on trying the reach the pixie directly and called Whitlocks business they told me Alice and Jasper had already left for the day.

Strange.

--

A couple of hours later I was sitting at the same place I had been sitting all morning though that was just about the only thing that had remained the same.

"Fuck," I sighed for the hundredth time, trying desperately to concentrate on the pile of data in front of me and not on the image of the frail little woman fighting for her life that was etched into my mind.

I thought Edward was just fucking around with me when he had called and told us about Bella but just a few words and the tone of his voice were enough to set me straight on that. Nothing could have prepared me for the sight of my little banshee lying there, pale as a sheet and with just about every bit of life kicked out of her. It broke my fucking heart.

Leaving her behind today had shattered the fragments even further. It had been one of the most difficult things I had ever done in my entire life but the again, standing in front of that room doing nothing had made me feel like a fucking waste of space as well. At least I had left Rosie with her and the vow that I would track down the son of a bitch that had hurt her and tear him to pieces.

That, at least, I could do.

Scully had agreed with me that there was no fucking way that Denali bitch could have done this on her own. She must have been in league with this James fucker. From what both Mulder and Scully had told me Tanya was one screwed up little bitch but she lacked the evil and determination to pull of a scheme like that just to get back at Edward for dumping her bony ass.

Edward. Poor guy. To be locked up in a fucking aquarium while your woman was fighting for her life a few doors down......I had half a mind to fucking spring him. When we first saw him he looked like a burning man, feeling pain that didn't have anything to do with the reason he was in there. Poor guy.

At least I had been able to get hold of Alice. It seemed she was having her hands full dealing with another member of James' skanks squad that afternoon and – if I had gotten it right – she was right in the middle of tracking said skank down and kicking the life out of her.

Poor pixie. She didn't deserve this. She deserved to be fucking hugged and cuddled all day, not to be running from one mess straight into another. I could only imagine how hard it must have been for her to choose the case over her friend right now. No one should ever have to be in a position where they had to do that....Well at least Whitlock was on his way with the antidote right now. I could only hope Bella would hang in there long enough for him to give it to her.

I must have been so caught up studying the documents that I forgot the fucking world around me because the next thing I knew the whole room around me was dark and I heard the creaking sound of the door opening.

"Rosie?" I asked , not immediately recognizing the shape that was standing in the doorway.

"Not quite," a dark voice answered.

"Then who the fuck are you?" I growled, chastising myself for not switching on the lights or locking the door.

"I believe you've heard of me before," the voice replied, as the light switched on, revealing a feline looking woman with a thick mane of red curls waving around her head.

"You're Victoria," I said, recognizing the woman from the files I had studdied and pictures that were scattered around the office.

"Correct," she giggled, the sound making me shiver involuntarily. "It appears you have a brain after all. Who would have thought?"

"What do you want?" I growled, my hand slowly snaking towards the second drawer of my desk, the one holding my gun. I had a sneaking suspicion this woman wasn't here just to catch up on old times.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," she scolded, a gloved hand holding a gun pointing straight at my face. "At least not of you don't want to end up as a red blob on the wall behind you."

" So what do you want me to do," I growled, stalling seeing as there was no way of reaching my gun. "Do you want me to talk?"

"No my dear Bosley," she said with a radiant smile. "I want you to die." She paused, looking like she was enjoying the shit out of watching me as her words sank in before you continued. "But before we get to that you have to help me along......."

"I don't see why I would, if you're planning is to kill me anyway," I growled.

"Oh believe me, you want to...." she crooned. "I've got a nice little bomb hidden somewhere in this building with the timer set to explode at three AM exactly. If you insist on being a bad little boy I will have you wait out every excruciating minute 'till then until you are blown into a thousand little pieces."

"Scary fucking bitch!" I snarled balling my fists in my lap.

"Nah ah," she playfully scolded. "Keep your hands on the arm rests Bosley....." She waited until I had placed my arms back. "If you do decide to cooperate I may just make all of this a little bit easier for you and put a bullet in your head. I'm told you don't even feel a thing before you die...."

"I don't plan on finding out for myself," I growled, trying to think of something – anything – to get me out of here.

"That's a shame," she pouted. "But it's not like I didn't expect it."She tossed me a bunch of leather belts. "Now be a good boy and tie your legs and left arm to your chair. Don't forget....I will check to see if you've done a good job. No cheating."

I quickly weighed my options. I was too far away from my desk to be able to push the panic button right now. If I complied to her wishes then maybe I'd find a way to get closer and push it. On the other hand......who knows what sick games that bitch was planning on playing with me?

She never took her eyes off me as I attached first my left, then my right leg to the feet of my chair, regretting that I had opted for solid steel instead of pliable wood, before securing my left arm to the armrest.

"Now put your other arm back on the arm rest," she ordered, grabbing a pair of handcuffs from the pocket of her pants. She cuffed me to the chair before she checked my work and used a fourth leather belt to tie my right arm to the arm rest much like the rest of my limbs.

"Back away from my boss bitch!" a piercing voice snarled from the doorway. I think my surprise at seeing Lauren standing there, hand on hip, equaled that of Victoria.

"My, my, if that isn't Lauren Mallory," Victoria snickered, swiftly recovering from her surprise. "Don't you have a cock to suck?"

"I mean it," Lauren barked. "

"You and what army?" Victoria snorted. "The last time I checked I had a gun and you didn't so be a nice little girl and stand in the corner will you?"

Lauren made a move to retreat into the corner Victoria pointed at but as soon as she was halfway across the room, nearing the point where Victoria was standing , she leaped away and jumped on Victoria's back, her arms and legs hooking around Victoria's waist to get a firm hold.

"You can take the girl out of the angels," Lauren screeched, clawing her perfectly manicured nails into Victoria's scalp, "but you sure as fuck can never EVER take the angel out of the girl. You should have remembered that you fucking bitch!"

I made use of the situation by hopping closer to my desk and maneuvering my bound legs underneath it. Pushing the damn button wasn't easy with my legs tied to that damn chair but in the end I managed to squirm my way in the right direction and got the job done, hoping Rose or Alice would get my pathetic cry for help.

"Bitch!" Victoria yelled, squirming wildly to get Lauren off her back meanwhile trying to pry my secretary's legs away from her waist.

"Look who's talking," Lauren growled, yanking a strand of curly red hair out of Victoria's head.

"You can't help butting into other people's business can you?" Victoria growled, backing into the wall in a new attempt to get Lauren off her back.

"Is that the best you can do you little bitch?" Lauren taunted, clawing her nails into an untarnished part of Victoria's pale white skin.

On any other day having two women fight it out in front of me would have made me happy – very fucking happy if you know what I mean – but with Victoria being such a total ballshrinker and me being tied up and at her mercy having this fucked up episode of 'Girls gone wild' playing out in front of me wasn't all it's cracked up to be.

Somehow during the struggle Victoria must have gotten a hold on Lauren because the next thing I knew my cranky secretary was flying though the room, landing somewhere next to my desk with a loud thud as Victoria scrambled to the gun that had fallen on the floor during their struggle.

"Bye bye baby," Victoria giggled, as she aimed her gun at Lauren. "I guess this proofs you were always a fucking inferior angel after all."

I saw Laurens body sink to the floor as the gunshots echoed through the building, her lifeless eyes rolling into the back of her head as she hit the floor.

"You sick psycho fucking bitch!" I yelled, too shocked to care about the fact that I was yelling at an armed and dangerous person. "Look what you did! You killed her! YOU KILLED A FUCKING HUMAN BEING!"

"Now that we have that out of the way," she grinned, completely ignoring me as she stepped over Lauren's body, "let's see if we can get in touch with Carlisle."

She leaned over the desk, fidgeting with the controls of my state of the art switchboard.

'Keep trying bitch,' I thought to myself. 'You're never going to crack that one, not if I gave you a fucking month to do it.'

She seemed to be coming to the same conclusion because after a dozen or so fruitless attempts to hack her way through the software she turned to me. "I knew there was a reason I didn't kill you yet," she chuckled. "Connect me to Carlisle."

"No." I sounded a hell of a lot calmer than I was.

"No?" she repeated, her face showing no signs of anger, only...amusement? "Lets see how long you can keep up the 'brave little soldier' act.." She hopped onto the desk, her skirt hiking up all the way to her thighs. I was sure that if I wanted to I could see all the way to China.

Yuck.

"Let's see how well you can take pain....."she mused, her hand trailing over my bound left hand before moving quickly and snapping one of the fingers upward, breaking it in one painful snap.

"FUCKING BITCH!" I yelled out in pain.

"Now what did I say," she scolded, drawing her hand back. "No yelling!" I could almost hear my skull crack when she used the gun to smack me against the side of my face.

"Psycho freak," I panted out, my head pounding so hard I think the neighbors could have heard it as I felt the blood drip along my cheeks.

"Sticks and stones sweetheart," she taunted, breaking a second finger as she rolled her eyes at me. "Are you ready to make the call yet? You are right handed right?"

"Fuck you."

"You wish," she grinned. "But what if you'd never be able to again?" The hand holding her gun moved down like it were some fucking slowmotion replay on ESPN, the barrel now pointed firmly at my dick.

Oh no! Hell no! Not little Emmie! I wouldn't mind missing every fucking one of my fingers but please God, spare my dick!

"Connect me," she urged.

"No," I croaked, my voice betraying my emotions.

"Connect me or you'll be singing soprano for the rest of your fucking miserable existence," she snarled, cocking her gun as she used the pointy ends of her stiletto heels to kick me right against my kneecap.

"Connect me," she repeated, the gun zeroing in on my groin.

And may God strike me death for it, but I yielded.

"Okay," I whispered, hanging my head in shame. Perhaps Carlisle would be able to bring this bitch down. Or perhaps I could have her distracted long enough to call for backup. Rosie would so go commando all over her ass if she found out the bitch threatened to blow off my balls.

Yeah. Like that made up for me being a total fucking wimp.

"Good boy," she praised, patting my head with the gun. "Now tell me what I have to do."

I gave her the directions to make the call, though I made sure I wouldn't give her the actual number. I would take that one to the grave with me. Balls or no balls.

She must have know though, because before she hit the 'dial' button she attached a little black box to the switchboard. Dammit! She was tracing the call. All she had to do now was keep Carlisle on the line long enough and she would have his exact location handed to her on a fucking silver platter.

I really was a dumb fuck. A miserable whuz of a dumb fuck.

"_Bosley?"_ I heard Carlisle ask as he answered his call._ "Could I call you back? I am in the middle of something very important right now." _

"Well hello there Carlisle," Victoria said, smiling like a cat eying a very tasty canary. "Good morning."

"_Victoria?"_ Carlisle replied, sounding completely baffled._ "Is that you?" _

"I'm surprised to see you remember me," the bitch replied bitterly.

"_Of course I do,_" Carlisle answered, uncertainty clear in his voice. "_Why would I not?" _

"Because you send me into my death without a blink of your fucking eye!" Victoria yelled.

"_I wasn't responsible for you getting shot Victoria," _Carlisle spoke calmly. _"The Pack was. What they did to you was monstrous......." _

"And they created a monster," Victoria laughed coldly. "I wonder if – in hindsight – those dogs knew just how fucking much it would cost them." she turned her attention back to the speakers. "Just like you had no fucking idea how much your betrayal would cost you."

"_Betrayal?_" Carlisle sounded surprised.

"How would you call it when your boss, the one you risked your fucking life for, couldn't even be bothered to send you a fucking postcard when you're lying half dead in hospital."

"_You are mistaken,"_ Carlisle replied calmly._ "We did everything we could to get into contact with you." _

"LIES!" Victoria yelled, waving her gun around like it was a fucking candy cane.

"_Do you really think Alice would have just abandoned you?"_ Carlisle continued.

"YOU FUCKING LIE!" Victoria yelled before composing herself again. "But it doesn't matter. Before this day is done all your angels will be in heaven," she chuckled. "And you will be there to greet them."

"_Please think before you do something that cannot be undone Victoria,"_ Carlisle pleaded. _"Why don't you stay at the office a little while longer and talk to the other girls before you act?" _

"I'm sorry Carlisle," she stated, her voice going back to icy cold as she cocked her gun and pointed it at the phone. "I don't take orders from a speaker box any longer." With that she snatched her little black box away before she fired her gun at the communication system on my desk, sending little shards of it flying around the office.

"Now, where were we?" she mused, settling her eyes on me. "Oh...right. We were going to get rid of you. Did you press that panic button yet?"

"What?" I stammered.

"The little button that's hidden underneath your desk?" she chuckled. "Did you press it yet or do I have to do everything myself?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," I lied, cursing myself for not remembering that – being a former angel – Victoria would know all about the damn panic button.

"Bosley," she smiled condescendingly. "We both know lying isn't exactly your forte. And we both know who will be rushing to your aid in a couple of minutes...."

Rosie. My Rosie.

"She's already here," Rosalie's voice sounded, the room going dark again as she flipped the light switch. "Now be so kind as to back away from my boyfriend."

"You're faster than the others," Victoria grinned. "Or is it that you're the only one left?"

"Back the fuck away from my boyfriend," Rose snarled, her usually so pretty blue eyes livid with rage.

"What?" Victoria taunted. "Do you really think you're stronger than me?"

"I'm strong enough to fucking kill you bitch!" Rose growled, leaping over a club chair as she lunged at Victoria.

I watched with bated breath as they engaged in their fight. Not that I doubted my Rosie's abilities to kick the crap out of Victoria but damn! That was my woman out there and I was powerless to help her.

Rosie managed to wrestle Victoria to the ground, stomping on the bitch's right hand to get her to drop the gun. As soon as the cold steel hit the floor Rose used her one free leg to kick it into a far corner, as far away from them as she possibly could.

In the darkness of the room it was sometimes hard to see who was hitting who and who was having the upper hand. What I did gather was that they were quite evenly matched.

At one point my Rosie broke Victoria's nose because I heard Rose pant a victorious 'up yours' while Victoria emitted a groan but only minutes later I heard something snap that had no business snapping before Victoria let out one of her evil fucking cackles and tried to scramble towards the gun.

"Rosie, are you okay baby?" I yelled.

"I'm fine honey," she groaned as she limped after Victoria who was getting dangerously close to the corner in which the gun had disappeared. She crouched down and reached for something before leaping back onto Victoria who was on her feet searching for the gun.

"Argh!" Victoria yelled out in pain.

Bingo! My girl probably had a knife stashed somewhere in her pants leg and now it had made it's mark on Victoria's skinny white ass.

"Rosie look out!" I yelled as I saw something flicker in Victoria's right hand. She had found the gun.

"Drop it bitch!" Rose growled, a tangle of legs kicking into the air as Rose tried to get rid of Victoria's gun while Victoria tried to make my Rosie drop her knife. They both succeeded, the gun landing with am loud thud on the floor a couple of feet away from the tangled mess of the two fighting women as the knife glided over the floor and landed inches away from my feet.

"Time for some action," I grumbled to myself as I squared my shoulders and used my own strength to topple the chair. I nearly broke my nose, landing face first on the wooden floorboards as the sounds of the struggle going on somewhere over to my left kept going strong.

I slowly crawled forwards to where the knife lay and succeeded – after a few failed attempts – to wrap my lips around it and use my strength again to roll over until I was on my side, the knife pointing downwards to where my hands were bound to the armrest.

Then the part started where I really wished I had worked on my agility in stead of on brute strength. This was the part where brute strength only got in the way since my broad shoulders made the distance between my mouth and my wrists a lot fucking longer.

In the end I did manage to line the blade up with the leather ties and started dragging it along the restraints, ignoring the cramping of my jaw and the piercing pain when the blade missed the leather and sank into my flesh instead.

After God knows how long I finally felt the tough fabric starting to yield and I carefully moved my wrist to see if I could pry my hand free this way. Using the blood as a lubricant I succeeded, immediately grabbing hold of the knife again and severing the ties on my other wrist and feet before I finally scrambled to my feet.

The girls were still fighting. Victoria was still on the floor with Rose sitting on top of her. My girl didn't have the upper hand though since Victoria's hands were firmly wrapped around Rosie's slender neck. Squeezing with all their might as Rose's hands were dragging over the floor beside them.

"Knock her out Rosie," I yelled, ducking for the second drawer of my desk. If Rose wouldn't kill the damn bitch I would.

"Gotcha!" I heard Rose yell and I looked up to see what my Rosie's nimble little hands had been searching for. She was holding the gun to Victoria's forehead, panting for air as her neck was released from the choke hold it had been in.

"And what are you going to do with that?" Victoria taunted. "You already broke my nose."

"If you would have pulled your head out of your own damned ass long enough to do some research you would have been quick to find out that – in contrast to the other girls – I have no qualms about killing rotten pieces of shit like you," Rose growled, unlocking the gun and firing without another thought.

I saw Victoria's body go limp on the floor as all life left her and I knew I should have felt something other than fucking happiness but with her being such a screwed up bitch I couldn't really help it.

I didn't feel bad at all.

"Rosie baby, are you okay?" I asked, stumbling over to my girl who was still straddling the now lifeless body of Victoria.

"I'm fine," she said, dragging herself a few feet over to her right.

"No, you're not," I grumbled. "Quit with the tough chick act."

"I'm fine Em," she spat. "I just need to sit for a while."

I rolled my eyes, noticing the clock on the far wall read five minutes to three.

Fuck. The bomb.

"We have to get out of here baby," I yelled. "This whole place is going to blow in five minutes."

"What?" she panted, trying to get to her feet.

"Can you walk?"

"Don't think so," she groaned, biting her lips as she made another attempt to stand. "I think the damn bitch broke my leg."

"Allow me sweetheart," I said, carefully scooping her up into my arms, and legging it out of my office as fast as I could. I winced as her leg brushed over my fingers. Damn those hurt like a motherfucking bitch!

Four minutes left.

"But....Lauren," Rose argued.

"Two minutes and counting," I said, shaking my head as I tried to ignore the pain in my knee, head and fingers while racing down the corridor. I hated leaving the poor girl behind but if I went back now we'd all be blown into smithereens together.

"Please tell me you didn't lock the front door after you," I panted, sprinting down the stairs.

"I think I may have even left it standing open," Rose answered, her voice stumbling over the words.

"Are you in a lot of pain babe?" I asked, running through the open door and getting as far away from the building as I could since I didn't know how big of an explosion we were going to see.

"Nothing I can't manage," she squeaked, as I carefully set her down in the grass behind the parking lot.

Right on time.

The moment our feet hit the grass the building behind us exploded with a deafening rumble and a surge of air that would have knocked any man off his feet.

I filed my body over my woman's making sure she was protected against the fragments of debris that were landing all around us.

"Are you okay?" Rose asked, prying herself out from underneath me as her hands cupped my face, studying it for damage.

"Peachy," I grinned, ignoring the pain in my broken fingers and slashed up arms. I was okay now. I had to be.

"You're buzzing," Rose remarked, tearing the sleeves off her shirt to bandage my arms.

"What?"

She reached into the pocket of my pants and pulled out my phone. "It's Garrett," she said, studying the tiny screen.

"Garrett?" I panted.

"_Emmett man, where the fuck were you?"_

"Well," I croaked. "I was kind of tied up just now. I'll explain later. Any news from the hospital?"

"Any news from Bella?" Rose demanded from her spot next to me.

"He was just getting to that," I grumbled, trying to hear anything over the sounds of the burning building and the car alarms that had gone off all around us.

"_That's what I was calling about,"_ Garrett yelled, his voice dropping slightly as he continued. _"James has Bella."_

"What?" I yelled.

"What's going on Em?" Rose asked, her huge blue eyes looking at me with a frantic expression as she pushed a few strand of her mussed up hair out of her face.

"How the fuck did this happen? You were supposed to watch over her." I growled into the phone.

"_He knocked me unconscious,"_ Garrett apologized._ "When I woke up she was gone." _

"Fuck!" I groaned. "Do you know where he's taken her?"

"_He disabled the CCTV system and must have found a way around security and everyone else, though I have no fucking clue how he did it," _Garrett explained, his voice sounding like he was running. _"However, we do have a lead on where the fuck might have taken her." _

"Good," I said.

"_Turns out Mike Newton's car was caught by a speeding cam on the La Push road last night, when Newton's corpse was already sitting in the morgue. When I checked to see who's living out there the name of Jack Torrance came up." _

"Jack Torrance?"

"_A character Jack Nicholson portrayed,"_ Garrett explained quickly. "_James used names of characters from Jack Nicholson movies before. I'm heading over there now to check it out." _

"I'll be on my way to the hospital soon," I nodded, omitting the reason why, "I'll call you as soon as there's some news." I could hear the sirens approaching fast.

"_I'll do the same. Take care." _

"Good luck," I replied, breaking the connection as I saw the blinking lights of a fire engine pull into the parking lot.

Dammit! It sure felt like it was coming at us from all fucking directions. Fist Bella lands herself in hospital, then Alice gets knocked over the head and my Rosie almost turned into a fucking corpse and now Bella disappears? How much can a fucker take?

* * *

_**I'm not entirely sure I like how this chapter turned out but that may just be because I hate writing fight scenes (way to find that out while in the midst of writing the finale). Emmett didn't get to fight (which, believe me, he is very disappointed about) but that is kind of in character. Remember Bill Murray being caught in the first Charlie's Angels movie? He wasn't of much use either. At least Emmett did get to save his girl.**_

_**Next up is Edward. Chapter 28 is where it all gets really really critical.....**_


	28. Without you I'm nothing

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

* * *

_**I know some of you didn't like the fact that Emmett doesn't get his chance to fight in this story. Believe me, he wanted to. If only Victoria wouldn't have tied him to that damn chair he would have cooked up a storm, even though he is one of the gentlest characters in this story. I know most of you would like me to let Emmett have his action in the next couple of chapters but I don't think that would be wise. Victoria messed him up pretty bad, even though Emmett may not have given much attention to his wounds. He has two broken fingers, knife cuts all over his lower arms, a nasty scalp wound, bad bruises to his knee and the impact of the explosion may have left its traces on him as well. If he fights against someone healthy he may very well loose and I know I would be in a lot of trouble if I killed Emmett.**_

* * *

**Without you I'm nothing**

_**(Edward Masen)**_

_I looked up as the footsteps grew louder, my curiosity quickly fading into anger when I recognized Garret._

_What was the dumb fuck doing here? He was supposed to be watching Bella. What if something happened to her while he was off gallivanting across the hospital?_

"_What the fuck........."I hissed through my teeth, trying to prevent myself from ripping though the glass wall to strangle my partner._

_It was then that I saw what caused his steps to be so heavy and hesitant. His head was bandaged and he looked completely out of it._

"_I'm so sorry Edward," he slurred, sounding like he could collapse any moment._

"_What is it?" I yelled, panic creeping up on me fast and relentless._

"_It's Bella," Garrett croaked. "She's disappeared........" _

"WHAT?" I was at the glass wall in a second. "How could you let that happen?"

"I'm sorry Edward," he said, looking like he could pass out at any minute. "I was on the phone Mulder," he looked over to me with a cautious gaze, his eyes meeting with mine, which were seething with rage. He had been on the phone with Mulder, no doubt up to his usual antics, while my Bella lay dying only a few feet away from him? "Wait," he quickly added before I could start yelling at him. "It's not what you think."

"I don't know Scully," I snarled, crossing my arms in front of my chest. "It looks pretty damn obvious to me."

"She was telling me about some new leads in the case....some things that could help us find the asshole."

"Explain," I demanded, still not convinced but – for now – willing to listen.

"I called her to say that Emmett finally managed to get hold of Alice but she had much better news. Turns out they caught Newton's car speeding down the La Push Road and we even have a lead on where he was going....."

"That's something...." I nodded, pinching the bridge of my nose as I tried to make sense of his jumbled words. "Wait....Alice? What does she have to do with all of this?"

"As I said.....they finally managed to get hold of her. Jasper is on his way here with a possible antidote to the virus. He'll be here in half an hour." He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. "As I was saying...I was talking to Mulder when I heard footsteps. I didn't think much of it because doctors and nurses had been filing into Bella's room all night. Next thing I know I wake up on the floor feeling like an elephant ran over me. I came here as soon as doctor Carter cleared me."

"Why aren't you out there looking for her?" I growled, banging my fists against my glass prison. "You know where you need to go so get in your damn car and get the hell over there!"

"I'm on my way as soon as you're done yelling at me. Uniform have already started checking all of his other haunts." He looked down at his shoes again. "I'm so sorry Masen."

"Go," I growled. "Find her."

"I'll do whatever it takes to get her safe again," he assured me before walking away again, leaving me literally in the dark.

I let my body slide onto the cold floor, pinching the bridge of my nose as my brains frantically tried to deal with everything that was happening.

Bella was suffering from an unknown virus which looked and acted like the Spanish Flu. She had been given some kind of drug by doctor Carter which may or may not have worked somewhere before she was abducted from her quarantine cell by someone who may or may not be James, the sick bastard who tortured Alice.

Too many uncertainties.

Even though the thought disgusted me, I really hoped it had been James who abducted Bella. I didn't want to think of him having his filthy hands on her but this guy we could perhaps catch. If it were someone else the chance we'd identify the son of a bitch and find him in time to save my angel was slim.

Al that was left for me to do was hope the drugs they had given Bella would help her pull through this and that Rose, Emmett and Garrett would be able to find her in time.

I stood up and walked back onto the bed, sagging listlessly on the lumpy mattress. Just when you thought your life couldn't get any worse, they throw another curve ball your way and make your previous situation seem like Christmas morning.

All I had ever wanted was to find love and be happy but now that I had found it and briefly enjoyed everything it had to offer, happiness seemed further away from me than possible.

Where could he have taken her?

From what Garrett had said I gathered they believed it was indeed James who had her and that he had taken her out of the hospital. I wondered if they had seen him do it on the security camera's or if the son of a bitch would have been smart enough to have them disabled this time.

Where would he take her?

To his place? I doubted it. Even though no one had been able to find out where he lived, we all assumed it would be a matter of time before we did and James was smart enough to know that as well.

Where would I taker her?

Some place close by, quiet and easy to defend. A place where you could see and hear someone coming from a mile away. A place with multiple exits.

A deserted hospital wing.

I groaned as realization struck me. Why hadn't I thought of it before? Why hadn't I focused on more important things than my own fucking anger and helplessness? I might have send Garrett there straight away. Once more I had failed in protecting the woman I loved.

I jumped up from and marched back to the window, growling at my own stupidity as I slammed my fists against the glass repeatedly. Why – out of all the times to fuck up – did I fuck up now, when the woman I loved more than my own life would end up hurt because of it? Why couldn't Tanya have targeted me instead? I was the one who jilted her. It should have been me.

My hands were reaching around my, trying to find some outlet for all of their pent up frustration. In the end they manages to grab hold of the iron bed frame and shoved it through the room with as much force as they could muster. The movement caused a plastic possessions bag that was lying underneath the mattress to fall to the floor with a loud thud.

Wait.

I couldn't even remember the nurses helping me into the blue scrubs I was currently wearing. If I was lucky they had packed my complete outfit in there, including my weapons.

I fished the bag from the floor and emptied the contents on the bed, rejoicing when my hands made contact with the cold steel of my Glock, my ticket out of this prison.

I took a deep breath as I prepared myself to shoot through the glass wall. I hated damaging property of people who had nothing to do with the mess I was in but it could not be helped. I could call security – or even Garrett for that matter – but God knows how much time would have passed before they got down here and I had explained everything to them?

I had to do this myself.

I checked one more time to see if there was no one in the corridor before I took my shot. The deafening noise reverberating through the tiny room as the glass cracked at the first shot and crumbled down as the second shot hit it, just a few inches away from where the first shot had pierced the enforced glass.

I wasted no time waiting for anyone to go look what all the noise was about. I snatched the extra magazined that were also in the bag from the bed and jumped barefooted over the pieces of broken glass that were lying where the glass wall had been.

I ran out of the corridor, trying to get my bearings from the signs that were hanging from the ceiling. I had to find a stairwell. I knew the entrance to the deserted wing we had used was on the top floor of the hospital and, judging by what I had learned from the signs, I was currently on the third. I didn't want to risk being detected in a crowded elevator so the stairs it was.

How I managed to remain undetected as I ran through the by no means empty hospital was a mystery to me but somehow by the grace of God I made it to a stairwell without being stopped. I guess everyone was far too busy to see where the shots had come from to pay attention to the person who was actually responsible for them. Another thing that might have helped me avoid getting caught was that my gun was safely tucked away in the waistband of my scrub pants, hidden from sight by the blue fabric.

The stairwell was deserted, as was to be expected given the early hour of the day, and I managed to get up to the top floor of the hospital without being detected. Like the last time we were here the foyer and corridors near the elevator and stairwells were relatively crowded and I had to take care to get past them as fast as I could without raising suspicion. I didn't know if they had found out a patient was missing from the quarantine unit yet but if they did word was certainly going to get out and people would be on the lookout for me.

I took a few steading breaths, slowed my pace and straightened my posture before I left the safe confines of the stairwell. My years as a federal agent had taught me that as long as you acted confident and normal, most people wouldn't take notice of you, no matter how strange you looked.

However, walking at a normal pace was easier said than done when you're on your way to save the love of your life from the clutches of the evil bastard who seems hellbent on killing her.

What was it that this guy had against my Bella?

As far as both Bella and Emmett knew she had never met James before. In fact, out of all the angels only Alice was familiar with the guy.

Why target Bella?

Did it have something to do with her dad or just with the fact that she worked for Carlisle? And where the hell was her employer when one of his angels lay dying? I knew the guy had some huge shyness issue or something but you would have expected him to come crawling out of the woodwork given the circumstances? Yet, as far as I knew, none of the angels did expect him to show up.

It was strange, as was so much that Bella took for granted. If it had been me I would want to know who it was that I was risking my life for. Hell....I wouldn't even have risked my life for him in the first place.

What would drive someone like Carlisle to start dabbling in counter terrorism anyway? Counter terrorism was the realm of government intelligence not of private cowboys, however capable they might have been. This Carlisle was walking a very fine line between playing superhero and messing up years of police or intelligence work. I had seen first hand how lightly the angels thought about safety precautions and rules and regulations while on hot pursuit and if they broke those rules the scum's lawyers would have a field day. They would screw up any chance us bona fide crime fighters would have of ever landing our target behind bars.

I slowly progressed through the hospital, making my way to the less crowded corridor with the door leading into the deserted hospital wing.

The door looked exactly like it did the last time we went through it, though I could see the remnants of police tape lying on the floor. They had been called in to investigate the shootout that we had been in.

I picked up one of the pieces of police tape. More evidence that James had taken her here. Why else would the seal have been broken?

I reached behind me and grabbed the gun, looking around me to see if the coast was clear. Checking the magazine to see if there were enough bullets left on this round I gave a short, soft push against the door, making it open slowly.

Scanning the dark area in front of my, my gun pointing the way, I cleared the room before making my way into it. The corridor wasn't as dark as the last time we had been in here, the first rays of breaking dawn seeping into the windows, illuminating the many footprints in the dust.

I closed the door behind me again before I continued down the same corridor we had chosen a before, all the while listening closely for any signs of someone being in here.

There were none.

What if he didn't take her here? What if I couldn't find her? What if she died?

No.

She had to be here somewhere. The footprints told me as much. I just had to keep looking. Keep trusting.

I padded on, through the corridor, my gun pointing out in front of me as I cleared each corner and each deserted room before searching it for traces of Bella. As I progressed down the corridor my throat started to constrict more and more as thoughts of James taking Bella some place else started getting louder in my head.

To my side the light slowly started getting stronger as the sun rose to another rainy day in Forks, helping me to find my barings but also exposing me to whoever might be lurking around the corner.

I smiled when I spotted a pair of elegant black stiletto's, cast away on the floor a couple of yards into the corridor. I remembered Bella's face as she had huffed about the impracticality of her dress and shoes and thrown them into a corner. The sight of her, fuming as she ripped open the delicate fabric of her dress still aroused me. She had been so strong back then. So courageous.

I was at the darkest part of the corridor, even now still covered in darkness when I heard a sound coming from my left side.

A weak muffled cough.

Bella.

Without thinking of anything else than that I had found her I started running towards where the sound was coming from. Right on time I remembered to keep paying attention to any signs of James and pointed my gun, out in front of me again. I checked to see if the room was secure before I let my eyes linger on the almost antique looking iron bed that was shoved into a corner.

The room was dark, only a small window in a corner letting out some faint rays of rising sunlight, and empty apart from the bed and a cupboard and table pushed against the far wall.

It was also empty apart from.....

"Bella," I breathed, running up to my love, lying motionless on a hospital bed.

I saw her move, her hand coming up to rub against her forehead as she slowly stirred to life.

"Edward," she croaked, slowly opening her eyes and looking around her. She looked a little better than she had the last time I saw her. Perhaps those drugs doctor Carter had administered were working after all. "Where am I?"

"James took you," I explained, wiping a few strands of sweat soaked hair off her forehead. "but I've got you now baby."

I gently caressed her forehead as I kissed her lips, careful not to hurt her. She may have looked a little better but she was far from out of the woods. The fever was still there, judging by the heat of her skin and she still looked so pale and weak. It broke my heart. I had to get her out of here soon or it would be too late.

"Edward!" she breathed, her eyes wide and focused on something behind me as I pulled back. "Edward!"

The moment I turned around to see what it was I felt a sharp pain in my side, clutching the now slowly soaking fabric of my scrub top I heard the clang of the knife falling on the concrete floor.

"You'll never take her away from me," a cold voice spoke behind me. "She is mine now, as all of them will be."

I turned around, my trembling fingers hooking around the trigger of my gun.

"I'll take that, thank you very much," the man I recognized from the hospital and the few photographs I had seen of him in the file chuckled, grabbing hold of my gun and prying it out of my fingers before I could do anything to stop him.

James.

"That's right boyscout, look at the man who's killing you," he crooned, a satisfied smirk breaking out on his face. "Look at the better man."

"Edward," Bella groaned behind me, trying to sit up. "No!"

"Too late sweetheart," James chuckled. "You're all going down. Just be glad you're given the chance to go to hell together."

My hands still clutched my side, the blood now slowly trickling through my fingers as I struggled to keep myself upright, my strength leaving my body rapidly.

I wasn't going to last much longer.

As I sagged down against the iron bed frame that carried my beloved, her warm hand reached out to mine. I watched James turn around towards a cabinet that stood against the far wall, a tiny silver piece of equipment standing on top of it.

"That's right boyscout," he mocked. "You didn't think I would just walk away from all of this with nothing but the memories?" He shook his head as if the thought alone was so silly and incredible to him he could even grasp it. "Thank to this wonderful little piece of technology I will be able to relive my moment of revenge over and over again.....and share it with the rest of the world."

He grabbed the camera from the cabinet and walked towards us again. "Beautiful," he chuckled, still pointing the camera lens at us. "Very visually dynamic." He nodded his head, smiling at his own remark. "I see I chose my stage well. This is Oscar worthy material here!"

I wanted to yell at him, kill him, rips his eyes out of their sockets but all I could manage was a half hearted glare.

"Edward?" I heard Bella say above me, her grip on my hand tightening a little.

"Yes love?" I craned my neck, trying to look at her, but all I saw was the metal bed frame.

"I love you," she said, softly but earnestly. "I never told you enough but I do love you....with all my heart."

"Awww," James mocked. "Young love. How adorable."

"I love you to Bella," I said, my voice shaking a little. "More than my own life."

"Any more last words?" James went on. "How about a few choice words of love for your dad, Bella? Or your friends? I know you may want to say goodbye to Alice...."

"Bastard," Bella's weak voice growled. "You keep the hell away from her."

"Can't do that," he chuckled. "Will keeping her in hell do?"

In the silence I could hear his phone vibrating in the pocket of his jeans. He pulled it out, setting the camera on the table so it could keep recording up as he looked at the display.

"What is it," he growled into the receiver. "You know I'm in the middle of something important...."

I couldn't hear who it was that he was talking to, the words were to distorted by the echo in the room to understand them or connect the voice to anyone we might know. There was something in the way James' face froze for the tiniest moment before settling into a forced smirk that told me this wasn't a call he had been suspecting.

"Hold on for just a second sweetheart," he barked, before turning to us again, his hand over the phone, blocking out the sound of the room. "I need to step outside for a moment. Be good." He chuckled as he left the room.

"Edward?" Bella whispered as soon as he was gone.

"Yes love?"

"How bad are your injuries?"

I moved my hand over the wound. I was was still bleeding, though not as badly as I was before. He had cut me pretty deeply but I don't think he had damaged any vital organs. I would have been dead by now if he did. Still....I could feel life seeping out of me at a steady pace.

"Not good honey," I sighed.

"Can you stand?" she asked.

I tried to lift my legs but it felt like they weighed a ton, the muscles not cooperating at all. "I don't think so," I admitted.

"I don't know how much time we have before James gets back," she whispered, her voice still fathering on the words. "I think I may be able to get help.......I don't feel so bad anymore."

"No Bella," I whispered furiously. "What if he finds you?"

"Would the outcome be any different than if we both stay here?" she retorted, slowly sliding her legs over the edge of the bed. "I have to do this Edward, even if it kills me. I have to try."

"I'll come with you," I said, trying to pull myself up against the iron bed frame but failing miserably.

"Don't," she said, her hands stopping me and helping me onto the bed. "Save your strength to keep yourself alive. I'll get you some help, baby."

Silly girl. It would be too late to save me. I knew it. I felt it in my body. At least she would be able to save herself. Jasper would be waiting for her with the antidote by now.

The more selfish part of me wanted to keep her here, to hold her hand while I breathed my last breath. But I couldn't give in to that part. Not when there was the slightest chance of her making it out of here alive. She would be safe and in time she would be happy again. I could draw comfort from that.

"Be careful Bella," I said, bringing her face to mine and kissing her with everything I had left in me to give. "I love you."

"I love you too," she said, her eyes flicking from me to the door. "Wish me luck."

"Good luck my love," I sighed, watching her stumble out of the room, holding onto the wall for support all the way.

I could only pray she would make it out of here alive. If she was safe then it didn't matter what would happen to me. I was a lost cause anyway. I lifted my hand, looking at the blood that sticked to it. Judging by the way I was still bleeding I wouldn't be able to hold on for much longer.

"Now....." I heard James say, his voice coming from somewhere next door. "Where were we....."

His voice caught as he saw me lying on the mattress all alone.

"Where. Is. She," he snarled, coming at me with the knife in his hands.

"Out of your reach you sick fuck," I replied calmly. I wanted him to kill me. It would only speed up the inevitable outcome of all of this.

"Be safe Bella," I whispered as I saw him coming at me with a furious and demonic glint in his eyes.

I love you.

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_**Just a little thing for you to consider before you send me your death threats....If you kill me now you'll never find out how it ends.**_

_**I know this chapter is short, but it had its natural length. I cannot imagine it being any longer – or shorter for that matter – than it is right now.**_

_**Next up: Alice.**_


	29. Hangin' on the telephone

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

* * *

_**This chapter starts out a couple of hours before the last chapter did, about the same time Emmett gets attacked in his office.**_

* * *

**Hangin' on the telephone**

_**(Alice Brandon)**_

"Fuck!" My cry was muffled by the humongous helmet on my head.

I didn't usually curse like this but at times like these, when everything around me seemed like it was falling apart, it did relieve some pressure.

I lifted one of my hands and dialed again.

No reply.

"Dammit," I growled, the bike swirling dangerously underneath me as I searched through my list of contacts.

"Emmett?" Rose's voice sounded agitated as she picked up.

"No it's Alice," I said. "Why isn't Bosley picking up his damn phone?"

"I don't know Al," Rose replied. "But he just pressed the panic button. I'm on my way to the office as we speak."

"How is Bella?"

"About the same," Rose sighed. "She's hanging in there but only just. Garret's watching her right now."

"Do we know what happened yet?"

"Nope, not a clue."

"Damn." I really had a bad feeling about all of this. Bella lying sick in the hospital, Rose on her way to some emergency at the office and me chasing after some image my deranged brain had come up with.

As far as I knew the panic button had existed as long as Cullen Investigations but it had never been used. Its importance was the same as that of the safeword. Using it meant that Bosley was in great danger. I wondered what it was. Did James attack the office? No, that didn't seem likely. James wouldn't be doing something that risky. Did he have another accomplice then? Perhaps......... Anyway, an attack would explain why he wasn't answering the phone.

"You still there pixie?" Rose asked.

"Yeah. Listen can you help me with something?"

"Hit me," Rose replied.

"Can you pull up the map of La Push Road on Google Maps for me?" I asked.

"Sure sweets," Rose said. "Just let me get it."

I heard her push a few buttons, once again thanking prosperity for Rose and her love for all things motorized. Her BMW came with a wireless Internet connection and an elegantly sized flatscreen that would have made the boys from 'Pimp my Ride' see green with envy. To me that meant that maybe she could point me in the right direction. I mean...I had seen a driveway in the woods leading to a modern looking mansion and I had recognized the La Push Road by a street sign appearing in the flares of images preceding that but that was about it and I had to admit that all trees kind of looked alike to me. If Rose couldn't help me I would be in for one hell of a search.

"What do you need?" she asked after a while.

"Can you zoom in to find out if there's a big, modern looking house standing a couple of yards away from the road somewhere?"

"Lemme see," she said. "Yes, there's one a couple of miles in."

"Great," I squealed. "So I'm not crazy after all!"

"Not that I actually want to know....but what has you so excited?" Rose snorted.

"I saw where that bitch Maria was going," I explained, the bike thrashing underneath me as I rounded the bend onto La Push Road a little too fast. "Well, I didn't actually see it for real, but I kind of did see it in my head. You know....like those visions......"

"Let me get this straight," Rose interrupted and I could almost hear her rolling her eyes. "You're actually speeding though a forest at night on a bicycle of death because you had a vision?"

"That about sums it up," I chuckled, focusing on the road ahead. "Hey Rose...there's a turn up ahead with a dirt road leading off of it. Which one do I follow?"

"Shit," Rose muttered. "I lost connection. Gimme a minute."

"I don't have a minute Rose," I growled, slowing the bike down a bit. "What's behind the trees on the dirt road? A house? A bearded lady? The ghost of Christmas fucking past?"

"Pipe down a little will ya?" Rose growled. "You need to take the dirt road, follow it for about eight miles or so. There should be a little road to something leading towards the house there."

"Thanks babe," I said. "You know I love ya."

"Yeah, yeah," Rose muttered sarcastically. "I have to go now. I'm pulling up in front of the office."

"Good luck Rose. Keep me posted on what's going on over there and remember: no unnecessary risks."

Rose grumbled something unintelligible before hanging up. I really hoped nothing too bad was happening over at the office. Perhaps it was all a misunderstanding.........

'Yeah right,' the more grounded part of my brain snorted, 'like Bosley would accidentally push the button while scratching his ass!'

I slowed the bike down as I hobbled along the dirt road, scanning the dark tree line for a little sidetrack. It turned out I didn't even have to look hard to find it.

There was a snag however. After about eight miles – Rose was bang on target – I pulled up in front of a huge iron gate, two lamps providing ample light for the camera's to register my arrival.

Crap.

With just my luck someone would actually be looking at the security footage right now and have spotted me. So much for the element of surprise.

Unable to give up now that I was so close I took a good look at the gate, scanning the closing mechanism and locks.

No luck.

If I would have my laptop and toolkit this would have been easy, but seeing as it was I feared I would just have to tackle this puppy the old fashioned way by climbing over it. Thank God I was wearing pants!

I used the beautifully crafted decorations to get my footing as I climbed up the gate, careful not to get speared on the arrow point tips as I made my way up.

Now came the tricky part.

At the top of the gate there were almost no places to put my feet but, seeing as I didn't feel like getting up close and personal with one of the sharp looking arrow point I had to find a way around them.

I pried my foot into the latticing right underneath the spiky points, hoping it wouldn't slip or fail to give me the support I needed, before I flung one leg over the top, sticking it into the lattice on the other side before the next foot joined it. I grabbed hold of the gate with two hands and slowly lowered myself to the ground, congratulating myself for a job well done.

I made my way over to the house, steering clear of the actual lane while I used the lights from the house to guide me. I knew they'd probably seen me coming by now but at least by staying off the driveway I wouldn't make it too easy for them to spot me.

I didn't have a chance but to step into open ground as I reached the house though, since it sat in a large clearing. I scanned all windows, doorways and possible hideouts for human activity before I sprinted from one cover to the next, coming closer to the house every time.

I was quick to give up going through the front entrance as an option. Since the way to the door was completely lacking in cover it would be like shooting fish in a barrel for anyone inside the house. Perhaps a back door would proof more successful?

I made my way around the back where a huge Hummer and a couple of outbuildings looked rather promising.

"She's coming here James! I saw her at the gate!" I heard a familiar voice shriek from the open door of the storage shed over to the side. "What do I do next?"

Good. It seemed like Maria wasn't exactly a pro at dealing with these kind of situations. I knew all that brawn was only Gucci induced! Well she really had to bring it this time because this was right up my alley.

I carefully made my way over to the door, checking to see if she had spotted me coming around the house. I was soon to spot her somewhere to the back of what looked like a state of the art laboratory, gesticulating wildly as sher held her phone to her ear. She had her back to the door – not the smartest move to make – and I was quick to see her mobility would be seriously hampered by her flashy red pencil skirt.

Amateur!

I quickly wondered what would hurt her most: physical torture or being made to dress up in cheap polyester clothing for the rest of her life. I could imagine that for a Gucci groupie such as she was the latter would be absolute torture.

I let my eyes flash through the room, scanning it for things I could use in a fight, possible exits and threats and other information that might become useful. This must have been where they cooked up their virus. My attention was drawn to a little cabinet, locked with an impressive looking padlock, over to my right. It held a lot of the same tiny vials I had seen at Jasper's lab.

I quickly slipped my shoes off my feet and padded over to the cabinet as silently as I could and all the while paying attention to Maria who was still shrieking away on her mobile phone.

The top shelve was empty but looked at if it had been fully stocked not that long ago, the contents of it having left dust marks on the shelve when they were taken away. I wondered if the virus that Bella was suffering from had been manufactured and stored here. If only I would have found it before.....

I studied the labels for things I recognized. Detecting both vials of Chimera, Bellerophon and something new, which might have been the vaccine that guy Peter was blabbing on about back at the lab. If it was indeed the vaccine I'd better take some of it with me. Jasper would want to study it and if the virus had spread any further they needed it to keep the rest of the people of Forks safe.

Jasper.

Even the mention of his name in my thoughts was enough to turn my insides to mush. I loved him, I knew that now, and I must have loved him for some time as well, even though I didn't realize it before he kissed me.

Where did we stand now? What would happen if I made it out of here alive? What did I want to happen if I made it out of here alive?

I wondered if he would make it to the hospital in time. I had heard the helicopter flying over at a dazzling speed when while I was making my own way back to Forks but I had been too busy to think about what had happened over the last couple of days. I was still too busy......

Ignoring all of the sappy images the thought of Jasper conjured up in brain I studied the padlock and the glass door on the cabinet. Both seemed to sturdy to be pried open with my bare hands. If I had my toolkit and half an hour to spare the lock wouldn't have made me break out in sweat, but being as it was I had to focus on other means of opening the thing. The glass proofed to be tricky as well because by the looks of it, it was made of a sturdy shatterproof glass that would need a heavy impact to get it to give.

I debated my options. I could easily grab a microscope from the lab table next to me and use it to break the glass but it would take me at least five or six impacts at full force to be successful. I had no doubt in my mind that before I could even get to the second strike Maria would be all over me like a nasty rash.

Maria. Perhaps I could use her.

I rose to my knees, peeping over the lab tables to look at her. By the sound of it she was wrapping up her phone call, hurtling all kind of Spanish profanities as the person on the other end of the line before flipping it shut and slamming it onto the table, a gun lying next to it vibrating with the force of impact.

Gun. Bingo!I had a feeling I would be needing it.

Now to get to it. That would be the hardest part. Maybe if I could use Maria's less than stoic nature against her I would stand a chance of success. I mean, she didn't strike me as someone who would be calm and collected in the face of her enemy.

I took a deep breath, praying I would make it through this, before rising to my feet, making sure she heard me.

"Well hello Maria," I said in a clear voice that hopefully didn't sound scared or hesitant.

Maria let out a surprised yelp before she reached over to the gun, my cue to drop to my knees again as fast as I could.

The first shot shattered the glass of a window somewhere behind me, the second landed in the wall right next to me. I got on my hands and knees, the lab tables proofing some much needed cover as I crawled as quickly as I could to where Maria was standing.

Bullets where still flying everywhere and if I wanted to reach the damn bitch before she had fired all the way through her clip I had to be fast.

"Coward," Maria screamed. "Stand up and face me bitch!"

"So you can do what to me?" I growled, as I made an outflanking movement and leaped to my feet right behind her, grabbing the arm holding the gun and using her own hand to fire at the cabinet, hoping it had indeed shatterproof glass..

At least luck must have been on my side right now since the glass only cracked with the force of the impact but it didn't break. Since I had made sure to aim at the top of the cabinet we should be safe.

Now to get rid of Maria and her gun.

"Hija de puta!" Maria screamed at me, her arms trying to claw their way into my flesh and she tried to get out of my hold.

"You get no argument from me there," I growled back, twisting the arm holding the gun behind her back so that she would drop the damn thing. "My mom was a nasty bitch!"

"I'm going to fucking kill you," she screamed out in pain as I kept trying to pry her hands away from the gun, her other hand moving to wrap around my neck.

"Oh yeah?" I wheezed as she squeezed my windpipe. "I'd like to see you try without your damn gun!" I almost broke her arm, twisting it upwards but hey, it was enough to get her to loosen her hold on both the gun and my neck as she yelled out in agony.

I struggled to my feet, the damn bitch holding on to my legs for dear life.

"Back off!" I yelled, kicking her with my other foot.

"It's my damn house," she growled. "You back the fuck off!"

"Shut up!" I barked, grabbing the gun in a firm hold and hitting her on the head with it.

That did the job, or at least for now. She muttered something unintelligible before he eyes became glassy and unfocussed, giving me a small window of opportunity.

I ran back to the cabinet, grabbing a microscope from the table and using it to smash the cracked little window with one blow, grabbing whatever filled syringes and vials my hands could reach.

I could hear Maria closing in on me again but – without the gun that was now firmly planted in my hands – she didn't seem half as eager to kill me as she was before.

I scrambled to my feet again pointing the gun at her chest before she could get closer. I placed the syringes on the table, careful not to break them or spill any of the deadly fluid inside.

"Step back," I ordered. "Or so help me God, I'll blow your fucking brains out."

She took a few steps back, her face struggling not to show any fear as her hands grabbed hold of the table behind her.

"You cannot stop him," she panted in her thick Mexican accent, her almost black eyes fluttering between me and the house. "Nobody can."

"But I can sure as hell try," I said, flinging a nearby standing microscope at her head. It missed by a hair's breath. Damn.

"What? Do you really think I'd be stopped by you?" she snorted, giving me a deprecating look. "A midget in ugly clothes?"

"Don't you throw your fake Gucci confidence at me," I snarled. "And I have you know that before you started trying to fucking kill me these clothes could have beaten the crap out of yours!"

"You're nothing!" she screeched, getting closer to where I was still standing in front of the cabinet. "James told me all about you. "You're nothing but a little freak of nature. A smear on the map of humanity."

"Shut the fuck up!" I yelled, pulling the safety catch back.

"As if you could kill me," she taunted. "You were always the victim," she went on, "never the attacker."

My blood was boiling and my fingers were aching to pull the trigger but something was holding me back. She was right.

I couldn't kill her.

She was bad – completely rotten as a matter of fact – and she deserved to be punished for what she had done, but I could not take her life. I had seen too many people die in my years, witnessed to many eyes staring out blankly in front of them, waiting for death to come and claim them to be an executioner myself.

"You see?" Maria taunted. "You're too small to play with the big guys."

"I may be small," I growled, grabbing the syringe that lay ready and waiting for me on the table next to me, "but I sure as hell think big!" I lashed out, jamming the needle into her fleshy hip and draining it as soon as I could.

Maria's big brown eyes looked at me in fear as I pushed her backwards, into the empty quarantine cell and pushed the button, shutting the door on her evil ass.

I may not have been able to kill but that didn't mean I was a complete pussy. This way she had a chance. If I made it out of here alive – and the outlook of that was excellent – we would get her the antidote and she would live to stand trial. She might even be able to help us out with the antidote and the vaccine before she would spend the rest of her life rotting away in prison, wearing ugly prison uniforms.

Yes....that would be an excellent punishment for her.

"Now let's see how you like being locked up in a little fish tank knowing that maybe – if you pray long and hard enough – someone might find their way over to you with a cure." I turned to leave, looking backwards over my shoulder at the deflated Gucci Goddess one last time. "Or maybe not."

"I can help you," she pleaded, all fake confidence miles away now. "I can get you in touch with James.....I can get you to James. You could safe your friends....."

"Too little, too late," I growled. "And besides.....you've given me every direction to James I ever needed." I had seen her eyes flicker backwards and forwards towards the house too many times to not suspect that it held a treasure of information. Judging by the state of the art laboratory and the size of the house it may even be his place.

"I hope you take this time to think about the rotten things you've done," I told her, making my way out the door, the vials and syringes safely stored in a briefcase I had found next to the cabinet. "Perhaps you'll find that you have a heart when you're in danger of having it shut down on you."

Every cell in my body was pleading with me to jump back on that damn bike and head over to the hospital instead of enter the house. Always duty versus heart. I had to do my duty though, the heart had to wait. I needed to know if maybe the house held the key to unlocking the past, the information we needed to bring James down.

I cautiously entered the house through the back door. The place seemed deserted – and if it wasn't whoever was in there probably would have checked out what was happening at the lab when he or she heard us – but it was always better to be on the safe side, even if I was the only one of Carlisle's angels who seem to bother about general safety regulations nowadays.

I walked through the corridor, holding the gun out in front of me as I scanned empty room after empty room, when a loud squeak reverberated through the house, almost making me want to drop the gun and the briefcase and cover my ears, before an all too familiar voice sounded over th intercom.

"It is a pleasure to see you again Rachel," his voice echoed through the house. "We never did get to say goodbye last time. I see you've blossomed into quite the young lady......."

Don't listen. Don't listen. Don't listen.

I backed out of the room, scrambling towards the hallway in an effort to get as far away from James as I could. I should have been prepared for this. I should be able to use my anger and pain to do something constructive. Like killing the bastard.

"Don't think you can hide for me little Rachel of mine," he sang. "I'll always find you."

I heard a faint bleeping sound before the whole house got dark as huge metal shutters snapped into place, trapping me inside the building.

"No," I gasped. 'This can't be happening."

"Oh, but it is," his cold voice purred.

"Don't talk to me!' I was in danger of loosing my mind. His voice conjured up images I had struggled for years to forget. My whole being was transported back to that basement where he spend nights torturing me.

"What is it Rachel?" he went on. "Aren't you happy to see me?"

"SHUT UP!" I yelled, firing my gun at one of the speakers in the ceiling.

It was of no use. He was everywhere.

"Did you really think it would be that easy?" his voice taunted. "Did you think I'd ever give up?"

I couldn't handle this. I had been his victim before but that was an era ago, before I had known love and comfort. I knew I wouldn't be able to resist him this time.

"I am so glad you came to see me," he continued, "because I was nowhere near done with you when we parted ways. I have plans...."

I stuck my fingers in my ear, trying to block out the sound as I went in search for its source. If only I could stop him from talking to me I might be able to concentrate on getting out of here.

"Don't worry," his voice sounded muffled but still comprehensible, "it will end soon. However, before your days in this world will come to and end you will loose everything you ever loved...."

"Why are you doing this to me?" I yelled out, unable to ignore him any longer.

"Do you see it now Rachel?" he asked in a frantic voice. "Do you understand what it is like to be so close you can almost smell victory but to be kept away from it infinitesimally?" Do you get it?"

I realized there and then that my victory over Maria had been nothing but a Pyrrhic victory. He had sacrificed Maria to get me right where he wanted me.

"Sit back and relax," he chuckled. "There's some excellent white wine in the fridge if you want it. I have a thing or two to to deal with before I can focus my attention on you."

I looked around me for something – anything – that would help me escape this place but found nothing. James had planned all of this to a 'T'. he wasn't going to have his big plan blow up in his face because of a blatant error like that.

"You won't be bored though," his piercing voice sounded. "I've got quite the entertainment program set up for you."

I saw a television screen flicker to life in the kitchen as he spoke, the images blurry but still very visible none the less. I gasped as I saw Bella lying on a hospital bed, looking as pale and weak as if she were already dead.

"Do you think she'll wake up?" James wondered. "I do hope so. It won't be nearly as fun if she doesn't."

I ducked back into the hallway, not wanting to see that sick bastard do anything to my friend. There had to be some way of getting out of here. Perhaps if I could find the controls for the security system or something I could use to hack into it?

I stumbled through the house as James' voice continued to haunt me. It couldn't escape him, not with each freakin' room of the house equipped with a huge flatsceen and the sounds of James voice sounding through the built in sound system.

"Excellent," I heard him purr after a while. "Do you hear that Rachel? I think my plans just got a little better."

I couldn't help but glance over to the television screen. It seemed like James had put the camera on some kind of cabinet or something because all I could see was the bed and Bella lying in it. There was a sound though, a sound I couldn't quite recognize at first but the recognized to be footsteps.

"Edward!" I was started by the sound of my own voice as I saw the familiar face appear out of the darkness.

I could see Bella opening her eyes almost the moment Edward rushed to her side. It was as if their body's were attuned to one another. So much so that Bella recognized him even when she was unconscious.

I could see him brush his hand over her face as he whispered an explanation to Bella, her eyes trying to focus on him and the room around her. She still looked so fragile, so brittle.

"No!" I gasped, watching as James appeared behind Edward, the blade of a knife glistening in the light of the rising dawn.

"Edward watch out!" I yelled at the screen, though I knew he wouldn't hear me. I had never felt so helpless before.

James kept sneaking closer, careful to remain out of sight and not to do anything that could attract attention until he was right behind Edward. I wanted to look away. I didn't want to see this. I didn't want to hear this. But I was powerless to stop myself. It was like I was glued to the screen and something inside me was forcing me to watch.

"No!" I cried out as I saw James' hand draw back, poised to strike.

Bella must have noticed him as well because her whole body went rigid as she furiously tried to get Edwards attention.

It was too late though.

The moment Edward looked back the blade had already sunken into his body. I fell to my knees, tears streaming over my face as I watched him pull the knife out of the wound and look out in front of him with a surprised look.

"You will never take her away from me," James growled contently. "She's mine now, as all of them will be."

I leaped to my feet again and ran out of there, bolting like an idiot in search of an exit. Anything. I had to do something. My friends were dying over there. I had to get out of here and save them.

Behind me I heard James as he kept taunting Edward and Bella.

"Any more last words?" I heard James chuckle. "How about a few choice words of love to your dad, Bella? Or your friends?" I tensed as I heard him refer to Rose and me. "I know you may want to say goodbye to Alice......."

I roared with frustration, never having felt this powerless in my life. At least when I was in that basement with him, tried up and completely at his mercy, I had my strength of mind and my ability to predict his next moves to help me along. I had been doing the taunting back then. Right now there was nothing I could do.

Nothing but watch the bastard kill my friends.

I tried to firing my gun at the shutters. Perhaps I would be able to shoot my way out. The only thing I hear, however, was the metallic click telling me I had run out of bullets. I let out a frustrated cry, throwing the gun away and grabbing the nearest thing I could reach – a sturdy looking wooden statue that looked African – and threw it at the window, shattering the glass with the force of impact. It didn't stand a chance against the shutters though. Not even a scratch on the surface.

"Dammit!" I cried, dashing through the shards of glass to grab the statue and pound it against the shutters. The only thing that did was drown out the sounds of James' laughter and Edward and Bella's words of love to one another as they lay dying.

"Who's in there?" A familiar voice barked at me from the other side.

"Alice Brandon," I yelled back. "Who the hell are you?"

"Alice?" I knew I should have known who that voice belonged to. "It's Garrett. Are you okay honey?"

"Garrett!" I could kiss him right now. "James has Bella and Edward!"

"She's not in there with you?"

"No," I yelled back. "I think he's got them somewhere in the abandoned wing at the hospital."

"Wait a second," he replied and I could hear him yell directions to his colleagues.

"Can you get me the hell out of here?" I yelled. "I was never cut out to be a stay at home angel!"

"I'll see what I can do," Garrett hollered back. "You may want to step back though...."

"What?"

"Do you think Masen would kill me if I crashed his Volvo?" he asked. "Because I think the only way through this is brute force."

"How the hell am I supposed to know?" I yelled back. "Just do it. It's not like he's here to stop you."

"You're right about that," he chuckled. "Just get the hell out of there before you get hurt. I'll give you a minute to get to safe ground."

"Good luck!" I yelled before dashing out of the room in search for a safer place. The cupboard under the stairs seemed sturdy enough, plus it had the added benefit of not being within hearing range of James, who was still harassing my friends in their hour of need.

I could faintly hear a heavy engine – something sounding wholly unlike any Volvo I'd ever heard - roaring into action before there was an almighty thunder and the building started shaking like mad. As soon as the shaking had stopped and I had confirmed that all my libs were still attached to my body I wandered out of the cupboard, coughing as a could of dust hit me like a think smelly blanket.

I felt my way to the living room door, the cloud slowly lifting and uncovering a huge black Hummer standing in the middle of the living room, its engine still running while the hood was badly damaged.

I coughed, looking at the Humvee shaped hole in the shutters when the window of the drivers seat slowly rolled down, revealing Garrett's grinning face.

"Hey there little lady," he said with a fake southern accent. "Need a ride?"

"That sure doesn't look like a Volvo," I grinned back. "But it will get the job done." My eyes fell on a little black object covered in dust that was lying on the table. I grabbed it and the briefcase before jumping into the passenger seat of the car. "Let's roll."

He put the car in reverse, tearing back through the hole in the shutters and heading down the dirt road at breakneck speed.

"Hold on Bella," I muttered under my breath, "the cavalry is on its way."

I took a deep breath, flipping the phone open en rifling through the list of contacts, a smirk creeping onto my face as I recognized the name and dialed.

"Hello." His voice still made all the hairs at the back of my neck stand on end.

"I guess you never expected me to escape did ya!" I snarled as the car turned into the La Push Road with squeaking tires.

I sure hoped this was going to work. If only I could keep him on the line long enough for the cavalry to arrive......

* * *

_**So now we know who made the call that gave Bella the opportunity to get away from James........**_

_**Alice didn't kill. I had planned for her to kill Maria and had even thought of a way for her to do it, but she kindly let me know that Calisle's Angels don't kill when there are other alternatives and that she would never be able to kill maria if here was any other way. She has seen too much death already.**_

_**Next up: Bella.**_

_**I'm trying to get this story wrapped up by the end of next week, which would mean you'll get two chapters and the epilogue. I don't know if I'll manage though. I have some of it written already but seeing as it's my birthday tomorrow and most of my weekend will be spend partying I don't know how much time I have to write. There will be a chapter on Monday though.**_


	30. Run

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

* * *

_**Thanks for all the birthday wishes! I had a great day. Very inspirational is all I can say....... not for this story though.... because that would be weird.**_

_**I'm aware of the fact that some bits in this chapter are written in a style that's a bit fuzzy and that there is a lot of repetition. This is done intentionally since it's written in the point of view of someone suffering from a very deadly virus of which one of the symptoms is fever.**_

_**On another note.....The virus that has surfaced in Mexico is scaring the crap out of me. I don't know if all of the research I've done for my own virus has made me a little paranoid but when I heard about it on the news I was seriously freaked out. **_

_**If you want a visual of the place where most of this chapter is set copy the URL below and replace the (dot) with actual dots and you should be taken to the pictures I've posted on the twilighted thread. http://www(dot)twilighted(dot)?f=34&t=2676&p=409773#p409773**_

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**Run**

_**(Bella Swan)**_

"Bella." His voice sounded so far away, almost as if he was somewhere else entirely.

Edward.

"Edward." My mouth caught up with my thoughts a few moments later, my throat feeling like it had razorblades rammed into it. I felt horrible, more horrible than at any point in my entire life, or so I thought. I couldn't be sure though......my memories were all kind of cloudy right now. All of them except for the ones about him.

My love.

I tried to open my eyes, wanting to see him more than anything else. A faint flash of the last time I had seen him dashed in front of my eyes. The light was much brighter then. I knew, even though closed eyes, that the room I was in now was almost dark.

"Where am I?" I asked, my voice breaking on virtually every syllable it uttered as I tried with all my might to focus on the Greek God who was currently rushing to my side.

"James took you," he whispered, a strange mixture of anguish and relief dominating his face as he brushed a few strands of clammy hair out of my face, "but I've got you now baby."

His voice soothed me like nothing else could. Somehow I knew I was doing better than I had before, though – with the amount of pain I was currently in – that was hard to believe since I couldn't remember anything about what it had been like when it was worse.

I felt his lips brush against mine, soft like a whisper, while I frantically tried to get my bearings, my head spinning with fever, headache and thoughts.

I remembered going home, fucking elated with the fact that Carlisle hadn't decided to fire me after all and still deliciously dazzled after my night with Edward, to find some skanky bitch waiting for me on the sofa.

My sofa.

I faintly recalled her yelling something about me stealing her boyfriend and she going to fucking kill me for it before I had felt a sharp pain in my side and watched as she emptied the contents of a syringe in my body.

Things started to get really blurry after that. I thought I killed the bitch before she could make a run for it and there was something about Edward holding me and promising not to let go but I couldn't be sure if it was a dream or if that stuff really happened.

I saw the shadow behind him when I moved my head to ask more questions.

"Edward!" I tried to yell but wasn't able to manage anything above a faint whisper. "Edward!"

He pulled back, frowning at my sudden change of mood. I tried to let my eyes do the talking but even they were out of order right now as the shadow started moving closer.

I recognized it the moment Edward turned around to see what was happening.

James.

"NO!" I sobbed, as I saw the blade of a knife flicker in his hand before it plunged into Edwards body.

No please God don't let this be happening. Don't kill him. Take me instead.

Please.

Please.

Please.

Edward eyes grew wide with surprise and – later – pain as his body registered the blow dealt to it, his arms moving out of reflex to wipe the blade away from his body, the steel clattering on the floor as it fell.

I wanted to protect him, reach out and touch him, comfort him, do anything but lie here like a fucking corpse when he needed me most.

I couldn't even fucking cry or yell for someone to come fucking help us.

"You'll never take her away from me," James growled, looking at me with a maniacal expression in his eyed. "She is mine now, as all of them will be."

Edward turned around to where the sound was coming from, his body going rigid as he recognized James.

"That's right boyscout, look at the man who's killing you," the bastard chuckled smugly. "Look at the better man."

"Edward," I sobbed, seeing the blood that was started to seep through the fingers of the hand that was clutching at his injured side. "No!"

"Too late sweetheart," James chuckled. "You're all going down. Just be glad you're given the chance to go to hell together."

No.

No. No. No. No. No.

_Yes._ My better judgment sobbed, seeing how Edward was already starting to struggle to stand, his hand leaning heavily on the mattress of the bed I was lying on.

We had cheated death so many times. Now death was doing a little victory dance at being able to defeat us.

I could see James holding something – a camera? - in front of him as Edward collapsed on the floor next to my bed, his hand reaching out to mine.

"That's right boyscout," he mocked. "You didn't think I would just walk away from all of this with nothing but the memories?Thank to this wonderful little piece of technology I will be able to relive my moment of revenge over and over again.....and share it with the rest of the world."

I took hold of Edwards hand with every strength I had left in me, his fingers feeling frighteningly cold and weak. How different they had been before.....

"Beautiful," James cold voice chuckled "Very visually dynamic. I see I chose my stage well. This is Oscar worthy material here!"

What I wouldn't have given for a gun in my hands right now or – even better – a phone to call for help. I craned my neck, trying to look where Edwards gun had landed on the floor but I couldn't find it. James must have taken it.

A weak, mangled sob left my body at the thought that this was it. We were both going to die right here with this madman standing in front of us, recording every step of our death for posterity....or Alice.

"Edward?" I said, squeezing his hand a little.

"Yes love?" judging by the movement of his hand he tried to look at me but all I saw were a few locks of his crazy hair sticking out above the bedsheets..

"I love you," I said, trying to let all of the love I held for him shine through in my voice. "I never told you enough but I do love you....with all my heart."

I hated making this declaration in front of James and his camera but I couldn't leave it unsaid. I wanted Edward to know I loved him with every fiber of my being. He had to know before it was too late.....

I faintly registered James saying something but tried to zone him out. There was no use on listening to him.

"I love you to Bella," Edward replied, going for the same approach as me it seemed. "More than my own life."

"Any more last words?" James taunted. "How about a few choice words of love for your dad, Bella? Or your friends? I know you may want to say goodbye to Alice...."

"Bastard," I yelled, my voice coming out a little stronger with the adrenaline finally kicking in or something. "Keep the hell away from her."

"Can't do that," he chuckled. "Will keeping her in hell do?"

_Stay calm. Don't waste your strength. Stay calm. Don't waste your strength. Stay calm_. I kept repeating my new mantra in my head as I watched James pull a tiny cellphone out of his pocket. My new found strength gave me hope where I hadn't allowed myself to hope before. If only he would be distracted for a little moment then perhaps we could make a dash for it.

"What is it? You know I'm in the middle of something important...." Judging by the tone of his voice and the abruptness with which he ended the sentence this wasn't a social call for James. The though of it caused a little spark of joy in the all consuming blackness.

Up yours dickhead!

"Hold on for just a second sweetheart," he barked, the tiny spark of hope kindling into a flame as his eyes flickered from the floor to me.

_Look weak. Look weak. Look weak_. A new mantra took over as I let my head sag bag in the pillow and closed my eyes.

"I need to step outside for a moment," he chuckled, apparently satisfied with what he saw. "Be good."

"Edward?" I didn't have any time to waste.

"Yes love?" His voice sounded weak as he answered.

"How bad are your injuries?"

I held my breath as he took a moment to assess his injuries, hoping that, in spite of all the blood, it may turn out not to be so bad.

"Not good honey," he sighed.

Fear struck blindly and relentlessly.

Not good.

"Can you stand?" I asked, though I feared I already knew the answer.

"I don't think so," he groaned.

"I don't know how much time we have before James gets back," I whispered, trying not to attract James attention though he still seemed engrossed in his call. "I think I may be able to get help.......I don't feel so bad anymore."

"No Bella," he growled. "What if he finds you?"

"Would the outcome be any different than if we both stay here?" I retorted, holding my breath in order to be able to put up a brave face as I let my body slide out of bed.

Damn! My body felt as if I had gone nine rounds with a hippopotamus and the hippo won.

"I have to do this Edward, even if it kills me. I have to try." The thought of leaving Edward broke my heart but if I was going to lie here we were both going to die. Why not sacrifice my life for that little flame of hope that was still growing inside my heart?

The poor fool tried to hoist himself up on the bed frame, determined not to let me go out on my own, but he couldn't even stand on his own two feet.

"I'll come with you," I panted.

"Don't," I said, pushing him back down onto the bed. "Save your strength to keep yourself alive. I'll get you some help, baby." He was too weak fr these kind of things. If only he would just lie still and save his strength I might be able to save him even when time was running out fast.

There was so much blood.

So much life seeping out of him.

I had to do this. Fast. I had to run.

"Be careful Bella," he whispered, pulling me close and claiming my lips in a searing kiss. "I love you."

"I love you too," I said, listening for James voice in the other room. "Wish me luck."

"Good luck my love," he sighed, as I put my first tentative steps in the right direction.

Running out of there in search for help was easier said than done, or so I found out. I had to give up on the concept of running after a few steps, settling on a slow yet determined shuffle for the door instead.

I squinted my eyes, trying to find Edwards gun, but failed. James must have taken it with him or it must have landed at some place that wasn't visible to the naked eye.

I'd just have to do without. It wasn't like I could actually hit anything anyway. My arms were shaking terribly with the tour the force I had to pull off so that, even if I did manage to hold on to a gun, I would have a pretty damn hard time hitting my mark.

I shot a final glance at Edward before I tuned the corner. He was lying on the bed, his green eyes blazing into mine with all the love and despair that was visible in mine as well.

"Goodbye," I mouthed before turning my eyes to the corridor in front of me.

I recognized it. We were in the same deserted hospital wing we had been in a couple of days ago. Figured James didn't have the imagination to come up with a new lair of his evil plans. It was actually fucking convenient for me right now. It meant help was close by.

_'Yet so far away,' _I thought as my legs buckled underneath me.

My body was so weak. It felt like it was going to fall apart at any moment now and I was starting to fear I wasn't even going to make it out of this fucking corridor to get help for Edward.

"Do you really think you can get here in time to save your friends?" I heard James purr as I walked past the room he was in.

Good. He was still busy.

Wait a minute.....Save your friend? Who was he talking to? One of the girls? Bosley?

"You may have been able to get away from me once but you know as well as I do that you can never defeat me."

Outrun him. Who had been able to outrun him before.......I hated my mind for being all fuzzy and cloudy and unable to think. It was like I was watching a game in slow motion. Then the answer came crashing into my brain like a thunderbolt.

Alice!

My broken heart beat a little bit faster at the thought that Alice was on her way to save me. If only I could keep going then maybe there was a way out of this mess after all.

I slowly crept down the corridor, my body getting weaker with every step that took me to the door at the end.

It was still dark outside though the rising sun was starting to illuminate the uncharacteristically clear and starry night in a red glow.

_And the starts they were shining........_

After a while I started worrying about James finding me. I mean, the corridor was dark and all but with the light starting to creep through the windows and me being the only person in this wing apart from Edward and James, he wouldn't have a very hard time finding me when he spotted my absence.

I looked back. The room I had left Edward in was four doors away and James was in the room next to it, three doors away. I knew most of the rooms in this wing were interlinked with doors that had long ago fallen out of their hinges. If I went into one of those rooms and James would chance a look through the door opening he would spot me immediately.

But ten again, I couldn't stay in the corridor either. He was sure to spot me there.

In the end I chose the cover of the empty hospital rooms, hoping I would be able to hide under cover of darkness or behind discarded pieces of furniture until I was out of sight.

My legs felt like they were made of lead as I maneuvered out of the corridor and into a tiny room to my right, holding on to the wall for support. My body was protesting every step of the way, though, for now, I was able to silence it.

I couldn't listen to my own whining right now. Not when I had more important things to do. I could whine all I wanted in hell.

What did bug me was that my eyesight was starting to get a little funny as well. It must have been the fever that made my eyes all cloudy and unfocused but it sure as hell made finding your way though a dark, unknown building a lot harder, especially when you were clumsy to begin with and there were all sorts of obstacles in the way.

"Bel-la," I heard a voice sing in the distance.

Shit. My absence had been detected.

For a moment I rejoiced in the fact that I hadn't heard gunfire, meaning that James didn't Kill Edward. At least....he didn't shoot him. My body shuddered as other scenarios started playing out in my mind while that annoying voice in the back of my mind that wouldn't shut the hell up even if you screamed at it, told me that maybe he had no need to. Maybe Edward was already dead.

Had I made a mistake in leaving him? Wouldn't it have been better to remain by his side and die together?

No. I had to try. Edward may yet be alive and they may yet be able to save him.

I had to try.

"Bel-la," the voice was getting closer and from the sound of it, coming from the corridor.

I tried to keep my heavy breathing as low as possible. If I started wheezing like my throat was desperately trying to do he would have no trouble finding me.

Only a few more rooms to cross until I would reach the end of the corridor.

Come on Bella. Grin, bear it and run.

Or shuffle a little faster.

"Bel-la," James continued to sing, his voice sounding dangerously close.

I increased my speed yet again, managing almost a normal walk. Just a couple of yards – just a few more rooms to cross – and I would be able to get help. Edward would be safe.

"Come out, come out wherever you are," his sickening voice sounded, followed by the sound of a pistol being cocked.

I finally scrambled into the final room when I saw a shadow moving outside the door.

James.

I looked out in front of me to a solid looking plastered wall, cupboards lining its surface. There were only two exits to this room, the first one being the door to the room behind me, the second one the door to the corridor where James was waiting.

The corridor I would have to venture into if I wanted to save Edward.

"I know you're in here Bella,," he went on, taunting me. "Decide what you want to do.......clock's ticking on your lover's life."

I ground my teeth together in anger. If only I had my proper strength that bastard would be sorry his bitch of a mother ever gave birth to him.

I pushed free from the wall, deciding to retreat back into the hospital wing instead of walking straight into James' arms. Maybe one of the other rooms would lead into another exit or hide some kind of weapon with which I could bash the fuckers brains in.

My legs were starting to become shakier with every step I took, my skin heating up as the fever was returning full force.

Be strong. Do it for him. Be strong.

I bit my lip, pushing the throbbing in my head and the feeling that my throat was on fire to the side, They would have to wait. When I was out of this godforsaken place I could bitch and whine all I wanted – right before I died – for now I would have to focus on getting out of here.

"Bel -la," James sang, his voice coming from the room I had just left. "Bel-la........."

I quickened my pace, dragging my body through another empty room and before turning back into the corridor. I realized there were no other ways out of here except for the door at the end of the corridor and the staircase on the other side of the building. If James was on my tail there was no escaping the fact that he was going to find me sooner or later. I might as well try to make a run for it down the fasted route to the door.

I had never given much thought as to how I was going to die, which was kind of stupid considering the line of employment I was in.

I could not have thought of a better way to go than this though.

Dying in the place of someone you loved – more even than your own life – seemed as fitting to me as anything.

I had to safe him

I had to be strong for him.

I tightened my grip on the railing that lined the wall, slowly putting one foot in front of the other.

One step at a time.

I could almost see the door in font of me – the flame of hope hesitantly strengthening to a respectable blaze – as I heard the footsteps beside me come to a sudden halt.

"Got ya!" James appeared in front of me from out of nowhere of me his lanky frame blocking the doorway as his gun was pointed firmly at a spot between my eyes.

I scrambled back, loosing my footing on the dusty tiled floor and landing flat on my backside my head slamming against the wall as it went down with the rest of me.

"I almost feel sad for killing you now...."he mused, "when you're fighting so hard to save your boyfriend from dying."

"Then don't," I croaked in response, my whole body shutting down around me.

I could feel my life slowly draining out of me. My body had used every bit of strength it had trying to get out of here and now it was utterly spend and done fighting.

This was it.

These were my last moments on earth ad I would spend them alone and in the realization I had failed to save the love of my life.

"Sorry sweetheart," he chuckled. "You have to go. Don't fit in my master plan and all......"

"Just shut up and kill me already," I groaned. What was it with villains getting all wordy when they knew victory was imminent.

I just wanted this to be over with, to slip into fucking nothingness and be done with the pain and the fighting.

"At least your boyfriend will join you on the other side before long," he chuckled. "So you should actually thank me......."

"Don't count on it," I quipped almost out of reflex.

"Too bad I don't have my camera with me now," he mused, closing in on me. "Your little friend would have loved seeing this."

"Alice is going to rip your fucking throat out when she finds you," I croaked, my body starting to give up the fight already.

"Then I'd better not let her find me, do I," he chuckled, raising his gun and aiming for my head.

I closed my eyes, wanting to see something else than his cold blue eyes as I died. I tried to picture them all in front of me.

Edward. Mom. Dad. Edward. Alice. Rose. Edward. Bosley. Angela. Edward. Ben. Mike. Fuck. Edward. Carlisle. Edward.

Edward.

Edward.

The gunshots reverberated thought the empty hospital wing but strangely enough I didn't feel them. Dying must not be that bad after all.......

I wondered if Edward would have heard the shots and if he knew that this was the end of all his hopes of recovery. That was....if James didn't kill him before he went after me.

Edward.......

It seemed fitting for my last thought to be about him. My love.

"Bella?" a soft, smooth voice sounded right beside me.

An angel coming to get me?

"Stay awake, Isabella," the voice ordered, prying my eyes open against their will.

If this was an angel than I sure as hell needed to have a firm conversation with the man upstairs about fitting angelic behavior. Why couldn't they fucking back off and let me die in peace? Wasn't heaven all about clouds and violins anyway? Why wasn't I hearing violins?

"Urgh," I croaked. It was the only protest my voice was able to manage.

"That's it, Bella," the voice spoke again. "Stay awake."

Wait a minute.....

That angel sounded fucking familiar. I had heard that voice before. A lot of times.

"_Good morning angels." _

Fuck.

Carlisle?

I tried to open my eyes and look at him but of course my treacherous body wouldn't listen to me. It was still busy shutting down shop.

"Edward," I groaned, my voice slipping on every syllable. I might have been beyond help right now but Edward wasn't. If Carlisle could get him to safety then all would be well.

"Edward........" I wanted to explain to him where Edward was and that he was hurt but instead I felt myself slipping away, coldness and darkness enveloping me in their hold.

Please Carlisle. Please understand what I am trying to say. Please help him.

I pictures his face as it had been the morning I woke up in his arms after we had first made love – peaceful and utterly content – as I welcomed the darkness into my heart.

Goodbye Edward. I loved you.

Be safe.

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_*** ducks out of the way of object flying towards head while waving white flag * **_

_**I propose a deal. I've got the majority of the next chapter already written. If you make it worth my while I'll work my ass off to get the chapter up on Wednesday. If not you're going to have to wait until Friday to find out if Bella and Edward survived. **_

_**Remember..........I'm a teacher. I'm not easily satisfied. * insert evil grin * **_

**_For all of you who are wondering about Foundations: I've posted a little update on my progress and a sneak peak at the first chapter on the twilighted boards. Copy/paste the link and, replace the (dot) for dots and it should take you there. http://www(dot)twilighted(dot)?f=44&t=1810&p=411177#p411177_**


	31. An end has a start

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

* * *

_**Wow! I asked you to review and boy did you guys review! Thank you so much! It made my day. Now let's see how Edward and Bella will fare.**_

* * *

**An end has a start**

_**(Bella Swan)**_

The first thing I heard were the monotone bleeping sounds that came from right beside my head. My brain felt too foggy to comprehend anything, except for the annoying sounds though even there it had trouble recognizing where it came from.

As if the annoying bleeping sound wasn't enough a huge wave of pain came crashing over my body and I winced involuntary, causing a second wave to hit me. Movement – however small – obviously wasn't a great idea.

It was mostly my head that was pounding like mad but my throat and lungs felt off as well and I wasn't sure about my arms and legs. In fact....I was beginning to wonder if they were still attached to my body.

Then – as I was beginning to reel from the pain a little – a thought hit me. I was dead. I had to be. I had felt life slipping away from me when I was in that cold, dark corridor. But then again.....if I was dead, then where the hell was I?

This wasn't heaven. Heaven was supposed to be fun and nice if what my mom had told me about it was true. Perhaps I was in hell?

What the fuck?

I knew I had done some pretty messed up things – going after the Volturi alone raking amongst them – but I had done it with the best intentions at heart. Surely they weren't going to condemn me to the eternal fires of hell for it?

"Meh," the sound escaping my mouth sounded more like it belonged to a sheep then to a human being. Not the call for help that was supposed to leave my mouth.

Great. Way to make an impression on the folks over here.

"Bella?" the sweetest voice I had ever heard drifted into my ears, the face belonging to the voice appearing in front of my minds eye only seconds later.

Wait a minute......

If I was in hell then what was Edward doing there? He hadn't done anything wrong. There was no way they'd condemn him as well!

"No!" I croaked.

"Bella," the voice repeated and I sensed a simultaneous pressure being applied to my hand. It hurt but it also caused that same tingling sensation to wash over me that I felt every time we touched. It made the pain fade away like a snowball on a barbecue.

"Edward," I croaked, my voice sounding an awful lot like the lunch lady at Forks High, the one who sounded like she had been smoking a packet of cigarettes a day for thirty years.

"Open your eyes love," his smooth, musical voice asked, his hand brushing my hair out of my face.

How could I refuse anything he asked me even though I doubted if I was actually able at this point, to make my body listen to me.

I concentrating on my eyes, breathing a sigh of relief when a tiny flash of light started to crack through the darkness, slowly widening to reveal a blueish wall and the most vibrant green eyes I had ever seen.

Hospital.

I was in a hospital room. That explained the bleeping. And the pain. Good. Hospital was a whole lot better than hell. Hospital meant chance of recovery. Hospital meant......that Edward was still alive.

"Hey there Sleeping Beauty," Edward smiled, caressing my cheeks with the tips of his long nimble fingers.

"Y-You're alive........" I stammered, my voice slowly growing in strength.

"I am," he nodded solemnly. "Doctor Carter got to me right on time."

"Carlisle!" I blurted out, remembering those awful last moments in the corridor.

Nope. Definitely not a good idea.

The pounding in my head increased tenfold making me ground and close my eyes, unable to concentrate on anything but the pain for a moment. After a while some shuffling over to my right and fragments of a hushed conversation caused some distraction from the pain and I pried one eye open to see a kindly looking nurse standing over me. She gave me a fresh round of pain killers and advised me to just lie back with my eyes closed and wait for the medicine to take effect.

"What about him?" Edward asked as he saw the crease in my forehead slowly fading along with the pain. I opened my eyes again to see his eyebrows scrunched together in confusion. "What about Carlisle?"

"He was there in the corridor," I muttered. "Did you see him?"

"He was there with you?" Edward asked, the crease in between his eyebrows deepening with thought. "That would explain....."

"Explain what?" I pinched the bridge of my nose, still trying tho wrap my unwilling mind around the fact that both of us were still very much alive and in the hospital.

"Doctor Carter said he found you lying near the entrance to the old wing holding a gun with the dead body of James lying a few feet off. The police appeared to be thinking you fought James for the gun and shot him."

"No," I said, determinedly, "that wasn't what happened." My mind was still a little hazy about the details but I knew for a fact that the moment I had lost consciousness James had miraculously vanished and Carlisle was there, talking to me.

"That's what I thought," Edward sighed. "When you left my side you were hardly able to stand on your own two feet, let alone engage in a struggle for a gun and a shootout with a deranged psychopath."

"It had to be Carlisle," I mused, the images of those moments finally coming to live in my mind again. "It had to be."

"It's over now," Edward soothed as I shuddered with the memory of wandering through those deserted corridors, not knowing if the man I loved was still alive. He wrapped his arms around me, careful to cause as little discomfort as possible."You're safe now."

"And we're together," I smiled, my eyes tearing up as I stared at him. "I still can't believe you made it. I thought if only I could get help.....You looked so weak and....."

"Shhh love," Edward cooed, kissing my forehead. "Don't strain yourself with the memories of what happened. Rest. You need it. Jasper's cure might have gotten you through the worst of it but that doesn't mean it's all okay now."

"Jasper's cure?"

"He arrived only moments after I had taken off in search of you. It turns out Maria used his company as a cover to manufacture the cure and an antidote for it. Doctor Carter got to you right on time. A few more minutes and I would have lost you...."

"How are they?" I asked.

"They are fine,"Edward smiled. "I suppose they will be barging through that door the moment visiting hours start. They've been here every day for as long as they could. The nurses had to kick them out every time."

"How long have I been in here?" I asked. I had a weird sense of time right now. I knew that when I was walking through the corridor the sun had been rising and it was dark now so I had been unconscious for at least a day if not more....

"You've been out for almost four days, Bella," Edwards soft voice explained. "Were it not for doctor Carter and Jasper's assurances that you were slowly getting better I would have gone mad."

"And you?" I asked, my eyes scanning into his t-shirt covered stomach.

"I'm fine," he shrugged. "They patched me up and transfused me to make up for all the blood I lost. I'm still buzzed up on painkillers though."

"Good." I nodded.

"What? Me being drugged up to my eyeballs?"

"No," I yawned. "You being alright. That's good. Fantastic."

"Sleep Bella," Edward chuckled.

"Nooo," I protested, trying to keep my treacherous eyes open. "I've slept for four days. Who do you think I am? Sleeping fucking Beauty? I don't want to say goodbye to you yet."

"Then don't," Edward smiled, motioning for me to scoot over so her could get into bed with me. He winced slightly as he hopped onto the bed and we had to take some time figuring out a way to both be comfortable but in the end I felt myself wrapped up in that amazing, comforting hold again, relishing in the smell of Edward – of home- enveloping me. I was out like a light.

--

The next thing I knew it was light and I was awoken by the sounds of a small flying object bounding towards us at breakneck speed yelling my name.

"Mary Alice Brandon – or whatever the fuck your real name is - stop right there or you'll be sorry!" I growled, my body groaning with displeasure as I lifted it out of Edwards protective hold.

"Bella! You're awake!" she yelled, hopping up and down like a rabbit on speed.

"I am now," I growled. "Nice to see you too Alice. Couldn't you have chosen a more convenient time of day to come visit me?"

"Oh don't be all grumpy like that!" Alice retorted, rolling her eyes. "Emmett made me wait until ten AM. People are not supposed to be asleep at that hour of day."

"Whatever," I huffed, snuggling back into Edwards chest. "I'll come get you when I'm awake. Now shoo."

"I knew we should have put the pixie on a leash," I heard Rose remark in an amused tone.

"Nah," Emmett chimed in. "There's not better way to check if Bella's back to her old self again then to have her engage in hand to hand combat."

"Will you idiots please leave me the fuck alone?" I groaned, feeling Edward stir underneath me and pull me back into his arms. The fact that – even when he was asleep – he still wanted me to stay as close as possible brought a huge smile to my face. "People are trying to get some fucking sleep over here!"

"Not a change Grumpy," Emmett chuckled. "And don't make me come up there and yank you out from underneath the covers. There's no way of knowing what that would do to my tender eyes."

"If your eyes are tender then I'm the queen of England," I huffed, trying to disentangle myself from Edwards arms.

"I have to say you'd look smashing wearing a crown," Alice grinned.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Edward groaned, his arms tightening their hold on me.

"I was trying to give you some peace and quiet so that I could deal with the gang of village idiots over there," I said, waving over to my friends who were still assembled in the doorway.

It was only then that I saw what state they were in.

Alice and Jasper looked relatively normal, though Alice's upper body was uncharacteristically hidden underneath a thick turtleneck sweater. The only thing that appeared to be wrong with Jasper was that he had a happy shit eating grin on his face that made him look like he'd been lobotomized. Other than that he appeared to be in perfect health.

"You look like hell!" I blurted out at Rose.

"Thanks!" Rose snorted. "You don't look like the next miss USA yourself either."

I guess that was true. She really did look like hell though. Or – more appropriately – like she'd just gone nine rounds with Mike Tyson. I made a quick check to see If her ears were still intact which – lucky for her – seemed to be the case.

"What happened?"

"We ran into an old friend," Emmett explained, holding up his heavily bandaged hand. "Let's just say that Victoria sure knows how to make an impression!"

"Yeah," Rose added, her voice thick with sarcasm. "She simply blew us away."

"But my baby sure as hell took care of her," Emmett nodded, smiling down at Rose.

"And then you took care of me," Rose replied in a strange gooey voice I'd never before heard her use.

Someone should tell those two that their explanatory skills were way underdeveloped but that wasn't going to be me. I was way too busy keeping myself from throwing up because of the acute overdose of gooeyness playing out in front of me.

"Rosalie Lilian Hale," I groaned. "I know you like Bosley and all but please, for the love of all that is holy and pure, will you stop looking at him like you can't wait to drag him into the nearest broom closet to fuck his brains out? There's sick people here!"

"Oh come off it Bella," Rose snorted, rolling her eyes at me. "You're not exactly a nun either. And anyway....it's not like you're the only one who gets to have hot 'I just saved the world let's celebrate' sex! We did our part too you know!" She paused, hand on his, to catch her breath before she continued with an evil glint in her eye. "And by the way Bella.....you still have some serious spilling to do about your hot night with Mister Casanova over there." She pointed her finger at Edward, grinning like a deranged maniac.

"I guess that's our cue to leave guys," Jasper chuckled. "How about we get these ladies some provisions?"

"Good idea," Emmett nodded. "I could do with some grub myself too." He turned back to the bed. "Ed, man, are you okay to come with us or should we go fetch you a wheelchair? You know I'm metrosexual enough to push you all around the place and all....."

"I'll be fine," Edward growled, slowly and carefully getting out of bed before turning back to me. "I'll be back before you've even noticed I'm gone."

"That's impossible," I whispered, "because I miss you already."

"I love you Bella," he said, kissing me deeply and profoundly. "Forever."

"I love you too," I hummed against his lips before leaning in for round two. "Thank you for staying alive."

"Are you coming?" Jasper asked from the doorway while Emmett bolted into the corridor screaming some crap about his virgin eyes. "I'm glad to see you're doing better Bella."

Rose and Alice were by my side and sitting on the edge of my bed before I could blink my eye which was pretty damn amazing considering the fact that Rose seemed to be sporting a broken leg.

"So....." Alice started.

"So?" I replied, feigning ignorance.

"It seems we've all three of us landed ourselves in pretty serious relationships," Rose started.

"Yeah," I nodded. "What's up with that pixie? I thought you hated the guy."

"Hate is such an ugly emotion," Alice shrugged. "And you know I don't do ugly." She took a few breaths before she continued. "It turned out Jasper Whitlock is everything I want in a man. You should get to know him Bella. He's so nice and charming and......"

"You love him?" I said, finished her sentence for her.

"Yeah....I think I do," she said with a strange glazed look in her eyes. "Is that strange?"

"They do say love works in mysterious ways," Rose shrugged. "So how about you Bella? You seemed to be pretty up close and personal with agent Masen over there."

"Yeah," I said, not missing my own opportunity to go all girly and unfocused. "I love him. You know? In the kind of way you'd even follow him to freakin' Antarctica to live with the penguins without a moments hesitation if he asked you."

"We've got it bad," Rose chuckled, narrowly escaping Alice's attempt at a group hug.

Suddenly I felt Alice tense beside me and I looked to see what was going on. If Alice's eyes would have grown larger they would have popped out of her head as she perked up staring at the woman in the doorway.

"Esme!" she yelled, before leaping off the bed and bolting into the woman's arms.

"Esme?" I whispered to Rose. "As in Esme Evenson?"

"I do believe it's her," Rose whispered back, both of us staring at the happy reunion playing out in front of us.

"Good morning angels," Esme greeted, her whole face glowing as she broke out in laughter. "You know? I've always wanted to say that!"

Rose and I looked at each other and shrugged before chirping out a 'Good morning Esme' in perfect unison.

"I see now why Carlisle gets that look on his face every time he hears that," Esme chuckled, sitting down in the chair next to me. "How are you Bella?"

"I'm well," I said, "My head hurts a little and I still don't feel up to running the New York marathon and all but I'll manage."

"How about you Rose?" Esme asked, still looking concerned. "You look like you've had a pretty rough time as well."

"Nah," Rose shrugged. "Nothing I couldn't handle. Just a few cuts and bruises and smashed up leg...... but hey....it's nothing I can't handle.

"What have you been doing all these years?" Alice asked, still holding onto Esme's hand.

"What do you think?" Esme smiled. "I've been looking after my angels."

"You've been......looking after us?" Alice's voice sounded mightily tiny for someone as exuberant as she usually was.

"Of course my darling little Alice," she smiled. "Do you really think I could just turn a page and start afresh, leaving you behind? Silly girl."

"But....."

"I was careful to keep my distance all the time," Esme explained. "Watching you grow into your full potential and watching the three of you make the best team Carlisle has ever had made so so proud." She smiled at each of us. "But it was also the hardest thing I ever had to do. I wanted to talk to you more than I wanted anything in my life but I had to keep the secret."

"So how did you find him?" Rose asked.

"Would you believe he made me find it all out on my own?" Esme snickered. "I thought that the moment I found out his real name things were going to be easy. All I had to do was look him up in the telephone book, show up at his door and live happily ever after. Boy was I mistaken!"

"No mention of him anywhere?" I asked.

"Oh, he was mentioned already," Esme said, rolling her eyes, "but the only place that got me was an empty country house guarded by a deaf housekeeper. I spend two weeks watching the place before I came to the conclusion Carlisle didn't live there."

"Then how did you find out?"

"I mentioned I knew his name right?" Esme asked, waiting until we nodded. "Well, he actually works as a doctor right here at the hospital. I found out when one day I broke my leg on the job while breaking into a house via a tree. While I was waiting for the ER doc to see me I heard two men talk behind the curtain that was shielding me from the rest of the world. Imagine my surprise when I recognized one of the voices as Carlisle's."

"Wow!" I breathed. "Did you see him?"

"I did," Esme smiled. "I must have sat there for some time looking like a dear caught in headlights but when I heard the two men were starting to wrap up their conversation I knew I had to take action. I sneaked a peak at him from behind the curtain. I could have hit myself over the head with a bedpan when I found out I must have seen him a hundred times before....I just never knew he was Carlisle."

"Did you fall in love with him right there?" Alice sighed. She had always been a sucker for a romantic story.

"I already had," Esme chuckled. "I don't remember when it happened actually, but I actually fell in love with the man's voice believe it or not." She shook her head as if to chastise herself for her own foolishness. "He has such a kind, generous and open voice and the sound of it is so....beautiful.....I just thought that whoever that voice belonged to couldn't be ugly on the inside or the outside."

"And?" Rose asked impatiently.

"My imagination didn't even do him justice," Esme snickered. "I almost fell off the hospital bed the moment I first saw him. My heart was beating so fast I was afraid it was going to leap out of my chest and flutter towards him. How I managed to keep myself from screaming I still don't know."

"Awwww," Alice gushed. "What did you do?"

"Nothing," Esme shrugged. "I was too shy to just crawl out of bed, hop over to him and introduce myself so I just hid behind the curtain again with a completely red face and a pounding heart. It was he who came to me."

"He knew you knew?" Rose, Alice and I both started giggling like a bunch of teen aged girls as we yelled out the same question in unison.

"Don't underestimate Carlisle," Esme laughed. "He is a very smart man. Not even the slighted detail will pass him by, especially not when it involves one of the women who work from him peeking at him from behind a curtain. He spotted me the moment I moved the curtain but he never even flinched."

"What did you do?" I asked. "Did you go after him right away?"

"Not that time," Esme replied, shaking her head. "Someone came in to look after my leg and the cast they put me in made it very difficult for me to chase anything....let alone Carlisle...for the next couple of weeks, but I knew there and then that I was never going to be happy until I found him," Esme went on. "It was that same night that I decided to quit the angels and find Carlisle even if it took me forever to do so."

"But you did," Alice gushed. "You found him."

"In the end," Esme chuckled. "When the plan with the house fell through I decided to stake out in front of the hospital, waiting for him to leave work and follow him to his real home. "

"And that worked?" I asked. I couldn't imagine Carlisle falling into such an easy trap.

"Well....." Esme mused. "It did....kind off."

"Kind of?" Rose sorted.

"As I said....Carlisle is a very clever man and it doesn't take that much genius to figure out what a person is going to do to find you. He drove to the house in the woods."

"He did what?" we all yelled in unison.

"Yep." Esme nodded. "I could have kicked him – and myself – when I saw him enter the gate. But after a while I figured that at least now I knew where he was so I got out of the car and rang the bell."

"And he let you in?" Alice nodded with a slightly hazy expression in her eyes.

"Nope," Esme grinned. "I had to scale the fence and trek over to the house only to find it empty with the front door standing wide open. He was nice enough to leave me a rose and a message though."

"He left you a message?" Rose asked, her eyes scrunching into tiny slits. "What kind of message?"

"He left a message for me on his own answering machine telling me that he loved me and that if I was determined to find him he would wait forever for me to find him," Esme explained. "It was actually the tape that made me find him. When I took it home with me to review it I heard a tiny little songbird in the distance, a very rare songbird that can only be found at certain spots along the coast. From there on out it only took me days to scout all homes within the area and find him."

"And you lived happily ever after?" Alice was bouncing in her seat, her eyes still holding that same deranged romantic haze.

"I guess you could say that," Esme chuckled, ruffling Alice's hair. "Though leaving you behind has been pretty hard on me."

"Why all the secrecy though?" Rose asked. "Is Carlisle the shyest man to ever breathe the fresh air of planet earth or does he have such an almightily unsightly gob that he's afraid of scaring us if he popped round the office every now and then?"

"Neither of those two," Esme giggled. "I can personally vouch for the fact that Carlisle is quite the sight to behold....." she blushed slightly, composing herself before she continued. "He just didn't want his own person the become an issue, which – if he would have publicly fronted Cullen Investigations – would surely have happened."

"Then why go through the hassle of creating an alias and spending all that money when no one will ever know it was you?"

"It's called a big heart," Alice mocked, rolling her eyes at Rose's remark. "You might try being a little more compassionate yourself one day. It makes you feel good."

"Better than a new pair of Louboutins?" Rose joked. "That's impossible!" We all knew that Rose had the softest of hearts though it was buried somewhere beneath her prickly demeanor and love of expensive things.

"I know you would have done the same Rosalie," Esme smiled, patting the back of Rose's hand. "Even if you may not know that yourself right now.....And anyway, I won't deny that Carlisle wasn't just driven by the goodness of his heart. He had other motives as well."

"What kind of motives?" I asked.

"The Volturi killed his parents," Esme spoke softly, silence lingering as her words struck home. None of us spoke. We must have all been waiting for her to elaborate. "It happened when Carlisle was no more than a child. Carlisle's father was one of the most important entrepreneurs of Forks at that time and the Volturi wanted in on his business. When Carlisle's father refused to even meet with Carmine Volturi, the head of the family at that time, the Volturi were outraged. They struck....harder and faster than anyone could have imagined." Esme paused again, visibly struggling to keep her tears at bay, before she continued. "It was supposed to be a big night for Carlisle. His parents were taking him with them to the theater for the first time. He felt like he was really starting to grow up, which is an important realization for an eight year old boy. The whole experience must have been very overwhelming on him because during intermission he was starting to be a little queasy so his parents took him outside with them to get some fresh air. If only they knew who was waiting for them they would have chosen another exit....though I don't imagine it would have put off the inevitable for long...." Esme took another deep breath before she continued. "Carlisle's parents were killed the moment they stepped outside though Carlisle sustained only minor injuries. Before the members of the Volturi's guard could finish the job other theatergoers, alerted by the sounds of gunfire came outside and scared them away."

"What happened to Carlisle?" Alice asked, tears rolling down her cheek.

"He was taken to hospital with minor cuts and bruises and delivered into the care of Alfred Pennyworth, longtime butler and friend of the family whom Carlisle's parents had made executer of their will. When he grew up Carlisle decided to do two things to prevent other people from going through the same hell as he went through. He wanted to become a doctor to save people from dying but he also wanted to make Forks a safer place, first and foremost by getting the Volturi behind bars. Alfred stood by him every step of the way. He assumed the name of John Bosley and became the face of Cullen Investigations and the only one who knew the secret behind its foundation."

"He went after the Volturi?" I asked, not remembering anything like that from my own extensive research into the Volturi Family.

"He wanted to," Esme smiled, folding her hand around mine and squeezing it gently. "But he knew the time wasn't right yet. He had to wait for the opportune moment....even though it killed him to do so. It is why Carlisle didn't even think about firing you for going after them. He knew all too well how it feels to have the Volturi destroy your life."

"But he was stronger than me though," I muttered. "He managed to hold off on doing stupid things like that for years now."

"He took a different path to revenge," Esme smiled. "But that doesn't mean he had given up on getting revenge at all. In fact......I've never seen him so happy as the afternoon Emmett told me Aro Volturi and his precious guard were behind bars."

"So his job is done now," I mused.

"Yes," Esme said with a serious look. "And that's exactly why I came over here to talk to you. With all of Forks' major crime syndicates out of the way the angels have completed their task......"

"Carlisle is closing down Cullen investigations?" Rose breathed, her whole body going rigid.

"After he has helped all three of you find a new purpose in life....yes," Esme said. "Don't get me wrong. We are going to help you every step of the way. When Carlisle took each of you in he made a commitment for life. We will always be there to help you along. We just won't do it while sending you into life threatening situations anymore."

"Why would Carlisle disband the angels?" Alice wondered, her expression turning a little pale. "There's still crime in Forks. We could go after pickpockets....you know....go undercover at the mall or something...."

"Why don't you ask him yourself sweetheart?" Esme smiled, fishing a sleek looking cell phone out of he bag and dialing a number.

"_Good morning angles,"_ Carlisle greeted us. He must have been expecting Esme's phone call because he picked up on the second ring.

"Good morning Carlisle," we all sang back in unison.

"Gosh, I forgot how much fun this is!" Esme chuckled. "Carlisle darling....I believe these girls owe and explanation from you."

"_I guess they do,"_ Carlisle replied, his amusement evident in his tone before it turned serious again. _"The angels were founded in Forks' darkest days when criminals used to roam virtually unhampered through the streets of the city. I believe my wife already told you the consequences this situation had for my own family....." _

"Yes," Alice whispered. "We're sorry to hear about your parents."

"_I was only a young boy when they were killed,"_ Carlisle continued. _"But that didn't stop me from deciding something needed to change. Like my parents I had initially put my trust in the police but it soon turned out that the Volturi – the crime family responsible for their deaths – had their eyes and ears within the force. Every investigation into their dealings was being thwarted before it even began." _

"That must have been frustrating," Rose growled.

"_It was," _Carlisle admitted. _"But it made me even more determined to put a stop to them."_ He paused, almost as if he was catching up to his memories. "_I didn't want to be a hero or even for my name to appear in the paper so I assumed the alias of Carlisle Cullen – the name made up of the two places in northern England and Scotland my mother's and father's families stemmed from – and founded the angels."_

"Weren't you afraid of getting caught?" I asked. "I mean....I can imagine the Volturi tried damn hard to find out who was making life so hard for them."

"_I always made sure there were no traces leading back to me. Other than my parent's former butler who was in charge of the day to day dealings at the office no one knew who I was. When Bosley retired and Emmett took over none remained who knew my true identity." _

"No one except for Esme," Rose corrected him.

"Yes," Esme added in a mock offended tone, "What about me?"

"_Excuse me dear,"_ Carlisle chuckled. _"No one except for my one true love....Now where was I?" _

"You were telling us about the start of Cullen investigations," I said, eager to hear the rest of it.

"_Yes, thank you Bella,"_ Carlisle continued. "_With the growth of the town and the subsequent growth of criminal activity in it the angels became an important fixture as well, working together with those in the police squad who remained their integrity, though as time progressed we could not prevent the Volturi from getting more and more powerful. That is....until James arrived onto the scene." _

"So we should thank the son of a bitch?" Rose growled.

"_That would be going too far," _Carlisle chuckled. _"I believe that – had history taken another path – there would probably have been a clash between the Volturi and the Pack, leading to God knows how many casualties." _

"So this is it," Rose wondered aloud. "Forks is just going to have to manage on its own from now on."

"_Don't worry Rosalie,"_ Carlisle grinned. "_We're leaving the town in excellent hands." _

"Yeah right," I snorted. "Until those hands get bought by the first fucking criminal who comes along."

"Seriously Bella," the all too familiar voice of my dad growled and I looked up in surprise to see him standing in the door frame. "I would have at least expected my own flesh and blood to support me."

"Dad?" I yelled.

"What? Did you think I would just abandon my baby girl when she was in hospital?" he chuckled, rubbing his mustache while rolling his eyes at me. "Now what is this I hear about some guy sniffing around you? Do I have to break out the old hunting rifle and start protecting my baby's virtue?"

And just like that the final missing piece in my life shifted into place.

* * *

_**Yay! Charlie's back! They all live and I got to use Batman references and I didn't even leave you hanging with a cliffie!**_

_**I'm toying with the idea of writing a oneshot about the story of Carlisle and Esme. It would be some time before it would appear and I'm only writing it if there's actually people who want to read it. Let me know if you do and I'll think about it.**_

_**Just the epilogue remains. On Friday Carlisle will get to wrap this story up.**_


	32. Epilogue

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

* * *

**Epilogue**

_**(Carlisle Cullen)**_

I watched from a distance as they pushed the last box into the moving van, the girls all giggling as Bella nearly fell over when the box moved back faster than she had anticipated.

My job here was done.

The last of my angels had grown into three strong, confident women and were getting ready to start their future without Cullen Investigations.

They had all taken the first steps in embarking on their new life with the men they loved. I couldn't be happier for them, even though it would take some time to get used to not talking to them like I had for so long.

I smiled to myself as I watched Edward lift Bella over his shoulder and carry her up the steps to the front entrance of the girls' apartment building, Bella's arms and legs kicking wildly as she demanded he put her down, her joyous screams drifting all the way to where I sat hidden in my car.

Alice looked on, shaking her head as she leaned back against Jasper chest, his arms wrapped around her waist while his head rested on hers. Seeing my little Alice so happy was the best thing that ever happened to me, apart from Esme finding me. For the first time in her life all of the fear and tensions seemed to have left her body and she could just be the carefree, bubbly girl she was.

Rose – meanwhile – was threatening Emmett with all kinds of boycotts and bodily harm if he even thought of copying Edwards move. Emmett must have not been impressed by Rosalie's threats though, since he lifted her in the air, playfully swatting her ass as he followed Edward and Bella into the building.

Jasper just shrugged and turned his back to Alice, motioning for her to climb onto it. Alice squealed and hopped on, her arms and legs wrapping tightly around her boyfriend as he sprinted after Emmett while Alice belted out a variety of cowboy yells.

Right before they went into the building I saw Bella turn around, her eyes locking with mine almost instantaneously. Her lips parted in a radiant smile as she winked at me before turning her attention back to her friends, shrugging off Alice's questioning looks.

I should have known better than to think I could ever fool the police chief's daughter, though there wasn't a fiber in my being that regretted going after her that faithful morning.

I had realized what was going on almost the moment a nurse came to inform me of Bella's disappearance and Edward's breakout action, though nothing could have prepared me for the sight of one of my angels lying on a dirty floor with that madman standing over her, poised to kill her.

Ending his life had been easier than I had ever thought it would be. I had always considered myself a saver of lives, not and ender of them, but the emotions this villain stirred within me canceled out any compassion I might have felt.

He had threatened the life of my angels.

He had threatened the life of the people of this town.

He had killed and schemed to kill and harm countless of people.

It felt right that his own life should be threatened and subsequently ended in retaliation.

Saving Bella and Edward had been a lot harder. For a few moments, as I watched Bella drift out of consciousness I had thought I was too late and were it not for Alice and Jasper crashing through the door with the antidote a few moments later I probably would have been.

While they administered the drug and took Bella back to the quarantine unit I labored to stop Edwards wound from bleeding and stabilize him so that he could be moved and the wound could be closed properly.

The biggest risk from that moment on was getting him to rest and keep still long enough for the wound to heal. He was back by her side as soon as the threat of infection had been cleared and the only way to get him to take some rest had been to push his bed into her room.

She had sought me out as soon as she was able to get around. She had found out the moment her mind had put the official version of what happened in that abandoned corridor and her own hazy memories of that morning together and wanted to thank me for saving Edward and herself from death.

I knew she didn't agree with my request to keep my hidden identity hidden but she promised to keep the secret for now in spite of her own objections. I knew the angels had been anxious to meet me but it would be best for them to get on with their lives.

I shot one last fleeting glance at my former angels and their loved ones as I pulled out of my parking spot and drove past the apartment. They were all waiting in front of the elevator, laughing and joking as if none of the bad things in their life had ever happened.

It had always been my intent to take them away from the sorrows their live had lead them to but lately I had come to doubt whether I had not been naive to think I would be able to do so. The things Victoria had said to me that night had struck a nerve. To an extend she had been right. I had send my girls into life threatening situations. Sure, I had always taken great pains to ensure that they would be as safe and protected as they could be, but it hadn't made me stop them from risking their life in the line of duty. Not really the kind of attitude you would expect from someone who was supposed to be their protector.

At least that life was behind us now. We could focus on the future.

It had taken a lot less time than I could have imagined to get my girls situated in life, all three of them finding new goals that suited them to a tee.

Alice was going to travel the world as the first assistant of Jasper Whitlock. Apparently she had gotten a taste for the job when she went undercover at Whitlock Pharmaceuticals or she must have thought that protecting her lover outweighed the tediousness of all his business meetings. The massive media coverage James' plan had attracted had caused Whitlock Pharmaceuticals and its founder to shoot to fame in a short amount of time and needed a good and strong assistant more than ever. Alice would be more than qualified to do the job, of that I was sure.

Jasper hadn't let his fame go to his head. With the threat of a new pandemic becoming cleared every day he had poured all his efforts into developing a vaccine for the new virus. He and Alice were flying out to Mexico tomorrow to start a huge – WHO-funded – research project into the origins of the new virus. They would be sorely missed.

Rosalie and Emmett where the only ones who were staying in Forks. They were setting up a garage centering around the renovation of classic muscle cars while keeping an eye on the goings on in town for me. After some not so subtle nudges from Rose Emmett had bought the two of them a nice little house in a quiet suburb on the outskirts of town. I think Rose might have been more 'ready' to settle down than Emmett was which wasn't so strange considering Rose's background.

I had watched in awe as she had blossomed over the last couple of months, becoming her true self again for the first time after the brutal attack, though I wondered if the upbringing she had received had ever allowed her to be herself before.

I hoped Emmett would be able to manage her. He sure had his hands full. But if anyone could do it, it was him. He would still be my right hand man, even though Cullen Investigations no longer existed. He would keep an eye on the girls for me and report back if they needed anything.

Bella and Edward would be moving to Seattle tomorrow. After everything that had happened Bella had seen enough danger to last her a lifetime but – in a show of typical Bella Swan stubbornness – she had refused to give up on being a crime fighter if Edward continued to be a special agent. She had flat out told him that if he expected her to live in fear of losing him again she would definitely return the favor.

Unable to see the woman he loved in danger ever again Edward gave in and quit his job at the FBI. He didn't tell Bella that if he would remain in federal service he would probably spend the rest of his working life behind a desk in retaliation for the 'Volturi incident' anyway. He was happy to let her believe she had triumphed over him.

They were both making a fresh start after the summer. Edward had made his parents very happy when he announced he had taken a job as a paralegal at the DA's office while picking up his studying for his bar exams in the evenings. He had never thought studies at university would be put to good use but now that he had been working at the DA's office for a week or two he was really starting to get a knack for it. The first case he would be assisting on would be _'the people vs. Jacob Black.'_

Bella decided to start out at UW as and English Literature student in the hope of one day becoming a teacher. As soon as they got settled into their home she would also start teaching self defense classes over at her local community center. I had a feeling Seattle was going to be a safer place now that they would both be living there.

They would be moving into their their new home, an apartment overlooking Green Lake in Seattle, in a few days. It had been my parting gift to them.

I knew the switch from having a steady job that supplied more adrenaline in a day than a normal person would feel in their lives to being to less adventurous jobs and college benches would be though but if anything I knew they were stubborn and determined enough to make it work for them.

Forks would be in safe hands now that Charlie Swan and Eleazar Denali were in charge of keeping the peace. It had taken Eleazar some time to get over the shock of finding out how deep his daughter was involved in James' dealings, but in the end he had come out stronger and more determined to put a stop to crime then ever before.

He had met his match in Charlie who, after a few moments of hesitation, had taken up his familiar spot as Chief if Forks police again. His name had been cleared almost immediately after the Volturi had been incarcerated and even he had been surprised to see how many of the new, honest policemen were more than willing to accept him as their boss. He was happy again, being back on his home turf with Sue, the woman who had made him work past the pain his dismissal from the force had caused him.

Swan and Denali would be supported by a staff of honest, able men and women and a detective squad that would make many other chiefs see green with envy. Kate Mulder and Angela Weber remained of the 'old' squad, assisted by Ben Cheney who was still working as the custody officer, but they were joined by another former federal agent. Garrett Scully had decided that country life suited him better than the big city – though his blossoming relationship with detective Mulder may have been a decisive factor – and had taken a job as detective.

Yes, I was definitely leaving Forks in good hands.

With the angels all settled in live and the people of Forks freed from the dangers that had surrounded them from all these years I could finally give my wife the attention she deserved. I knew my need for secrecy had been hard on her and had deprived her of the young woman she looked at as her daughter and I couldn't wait to remedy that.

The day she had found me had been the happiest in my life. For years now she had been my partner and the light of my life. I had never realized how lonely I had been until that day she moored her boat at my jetty and walked up to me, leaving her old life behind. She had given me so much more than just her companionship and now it was my turn to repay her.

When Alice and Jasper would come home in a month or two and all of the angels would have had some time to settle into their new lives it would be time for me to meet them. But that was all in the future.......

A nurse came running over to me as soon as I parked my car in its usual spot.

"Thank God you are here," she panted. "Dispatch just came in. There's been an explosion at a factory downtown. They are bringing in at least eight major casualties."

"What is their ETA?"

"They are pulling up as we speak," she breathed and sure enough, I could hear the sirens from a distance, getting louder by the second.

"Has the disaster protocol been put into operation?"

"Yes, doctor," the nurse nodded. "Everything is ready."

"Good," I mused, nodding to myself. At least my life wouldn't be boring, though I doubted that as long as I had Esme my life ever would be.

"Doctor Carter?" the nurse asked, visibly confused by my lack of action. "Are you coming?"

* * *

_**And with that not to subtle nod to the final episode of ER this story comes to an end. I would like to thank you all for reading it and giving me your thoughts.**_

_**Writing this story has been a lot harder than I thought, not in the least because of the enormous amount of research that went into it and the fact that I had to combine all of that with a full time job teaching history. I think I decided to stop writing at least twice every chapter but your lovely reviews kept me going. Okay...enough with the drama queen act.**_

_**There will be no sequel, just the oneshot of Esme finding Carlisle (though that might turn into a small, five chapter story if my ideas keep going at the rate they are going right now) and maybe the missing chapter in Alice's POV. Completing this has been enough of a challenge for me so unless I end up unemployed and with sees of time to do research I won't be writing another crime story any time soon.**_

_**My next project will be Foundations, the sequel to My Mistakes were Made for You. It will be more angsty than the original but it will still have a lot of romance, fluff and regular banter in it. The first chapter (yep, no prologue) will probably go live on Monday so keep on the lookout for that or add me to your author alerts to make sure you get it as soon as it gets posted. I'm both scared to death and very excited to start posting on that one so if you liked My Mistakes be sure to give it a try.**_

_**If you have any more questions about this story or Foundations feel free to ask over here or at the twilighted boards. The thread for this story is in the 'Crossover' section.**_

_**Once again: thank you so much for reading this. Virtual cookies and/or cocktails for all of you!**_

_**MissBaby**_


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